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Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.15 (130)
🕑 Added 2024-03-13 22:30:01 +0000 UTCSergeant Wesker bit back his retort and sheathed his sword while turning away from the group. Making his way to the charred corpse of the mob, his thoughts were plagued with doubts.
After pulling out the essence collection rod, he fed his center delicately into the control enchantment. While the rod did its work, half his concentration was running through the encounter they just had. He could see the fire exploding all around him, smell the scent of burning wood, and taste the ash on the air. ‘It was madness, right?’ he wondered.
The world’s fire was unpredictable, unforgiving, and it was something that no sane mage would rely on. Forcefully shaking off the threat of something he couldn’t fight. His mind wandered to the little lord that had purposefully weaponized it. He just couldn’t understand him.
From the moment Nero Walker had arrived at the training camp, he’d been a constant contradiction. He dedicated himself to training with an intensity that frightened a practical man like Wesker. Yet, at the same time, he treated everything like a joke, or at least an opportunity for a joke. Humor was all well and good, but there was a time and place for it. And a training compound for the training of elite hunters was NOT that place.
But the thing that really unsettled Wesker was that when Walker fights, it’s as if he has no fear of death. He throws himself into battle, ripping into monsters like they had no reason to exist other than to die at his feet. Wesker had just watched the young man stand in front of the mob, no shield at the ready, and face it head on. He could still see the little lord’s face, full of determination, his eyes blazing with reflected fire, eager to meet the monster’s charge. A level what… 12...13 at most? Facing a high end class 2 monster, confident that he’d survive. It was unnerving.
But, if the young man was so dedicated to killing monsters, then why was he so uninterested in learning how to combat the wilds? The idiot didn’t even read the mission packet, let alone follow any of the advice from those who know better.
Wesker had heard that the assassins’ ambush could been avoided if that little bastard had just done what he was supposed to. ‘Unless he HAD read the packet, and wanted to meet the assassins in the field?’ he wondered, the thought causing the little hairs on his neck to stand up in panic.
The scene of Walker interrogating the assassin played out in his mind. Walker’s uncanny skill at pulling out the man’s secrets, tricking him into acting as a witness to another noble’s plots. ‘It turned out pretty well for the little lord, didn’t it?’ he thought wryly.
Glancing at the essence collection rod, he saw that it was almost finished condensing the mob’s crystal, or at least what was left of it.
Turning his head slightly, he looked out of the corner of his eye to see what Walker was up to. The little lord was chatting with Verena, probably discussing some magic or putting on another show for Vikander. Those two were full of secrets, and he’d learned not to believe half of what they showed.
He could see Averett watching over them all, their team’s silent protector standing guard while the nobles played their games for the general’s spy. How in the hells that little ponce managed to win her loyalty, he’d never know. But it had to be something more than money that kept her nearby. She was an Averett after all. And he didn’t believe for a second that nonsense about him being some kind of warrior prodigy. If he were, he wouldn’t spend so much time bleeding out in the training rings.
Managing to turn his attention away from the warrior woman, he looked for Vikander, finding her hiding in plain sight. He had to admit the young woman was good at what she did. Even though she claimed to be nothing more than a hunter, she was a natural at espionage work. The general had found her alongside the first group of assassins trying for Walker’s head. Yet, here she was, standing next to her former target, safe as can be. She really didn’t have a problem fading into the background. Even now, she was right there, listening to everything they said, and he could see neither of them seemed to care.
‘Damn the general and his games,’ he thought to himself. He was a soldier…. a hunter, this political nonsense was completely out of his skill-set. He didn’t know how to feel about anything at the moment, and he couldn’t recall the last time he felt like the world made sense to him.
This was going to be a long tour for him. He just needed to make sure that it wasn’t his last.
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Sergeant Wesker eventually finished collecting the essence crystal. Unfortunately, it was now a much smaller composite than it would have been if he hadn’t wasted so much time complaining. Seeing that the rest of the team was ready to go, he said, “Let’s get moving, the planar event we’re looking for shouldn’t be far.”
As the team returned to formation and headed out, Nero took one last look at the burned patch of forest. ‘Maybe Nick was had a point, this place is ruined,’ he thought to himself.
He’d read enough fantasy novels to know how powerful magic could be, but the reality of it was a little disconcerting. After thinking about it for a few minutes, he realized that it wasn’t so much the amount of destruction that he had caused, it was the fact that he hadn’t meant to do it. It really was all about control.
With that realization, Nero audibly groaned and muttered a little too loudly in annoyance, “Fuck!”
His outburst caused the entire party to freeze in place and prepare for incoming. The sergeant looked over his shoulder and asked, “Walker, status?”
Nero hadn’t meant to have his private grumblings overheard, but now that they had been, he debated if he should say something to Nick. Several seconds passed as Nero matched stares with the sergeant while his mind filtered through his options.
Apologize? No, he wasn’t really feeling remorseful. Play it off as nothing? No, he didn’t want to be a child that couldn’t admit his mistakes. Confess that he had learned something? Did he expect a cookie?
“It’s nothing. I just realized I’ve been acting like a moron,” he said with some rare humility underscoring his words.
Turning his head to look at Nick’s back, Nero added, “Hey Nick, I get what you were saying about control. Sorry I was being a little bitch about it.”
Everyone had been facing outward, covering their assignments, waiting to see what had provoked Nero’s outburst. But when they heard what Nero said, almost as one they turned to look over their shoulders and stare at him with varying shades of shock.
While Cathleen looked surprised but proud, Nick smiled like a loon. But Rose and Wesker shared almost identical looks of disbelief. Neither of them believed for a second that Nero was being serious.
He was aware of their opinions, their psychic fields made it pretty clear how they felt, but he didn’t really care all that much. Nero had only said what he said because he felt like it. He’d rather free up the brainpower to focus on mastering his mage-armor, instead of wasting hours protecting his pride and feeling like an asshole.
“Can we get going? We’ve got an essence thing to go deal with, don’t we?” he asked, not liking the fact that they were all still staring at him.
The only response Nero got was a grunt of annoyance from Wesker. No one else made a sound as the party resumed their search for the ‘mark’ Wesker kept talking about.
Nero was feeling pretty good about his handling of the situation. In fact, he wondered if this was the kind of personal growth that would lead to a level. He could almost feel the pressure from his built up experience reserves going down as if they were being applied to his growth. He opened his identity to confirm his hypothesis.
Name Nero Walker
Level 13
Race Human
Growth 99%
Tier 1
Condition 98%
Age 14
Center 63%
Body 4
Mind 5
Soul 2
Confluence 10
Stars 0
Pillars 1 / 1
Nero saw his growth stuck at 99% and he frowned in annoyance. Also, he hadn’t realized his center was so low. He must have been pretty wasteful with all his essence shield experiments. Or did his fire-wall stunt take more center than he thought it had?
Dismissing his identity window, Nero put it out of his mind. It wasn’t important at the moment. He’d level eventually, no reason to force it. After all, he leveled to 13 last night, he shouldn’t be this close to another level already. His leveling was slowing down considerably. Or at least it was. ‘This makes no sense… does it?’ he wondered.
He knew that he had some experience saved up after his last level, and he’d had one hell of interesting morning. Those experiences had built up and he could practically feel them crawling over his soul, slowly bleeding off into the ambient ether.
Sensing what was happening around his center wasn’t easy, but he was getting better at it. And at least his soul felt much lighter after his moment of self-realization.
The moment Nero processed what had just gone through his mind, he stumbled over his feet in shock. Self-realization? Lighter soul?
Looking back over the past few weeks, so much normal crap had happened to him that the world had started to make sense. Despicable nobles plotting revenge killings and maneuvering for position in the political landscape of Dorchester. Ornery military leaders with uncertain agendas. Spying hot chicks trying to honey-trap him. Crazy ancient wizards abusing their positions. Fantasy monsters straight out of the stories he used to read online. And there was even a wise warrior woman acting as his spiritual guide.
He’d forgotten that the entire world was hell-bent on pretending to be a self-help book. He came to a stop, abandoning his combat ready demeanor. The thoughts of everything he’d been treating as ‘normal’ regained their wonder and magic. When did he stop noticing that all of this was so ‘fantastic’, almost to the point of being annoying? He was on his way to deal with a planar event that was spitting out monsters… how crazy was that! And along the way, he’d been slowly learning to be a better person and face his personal shortcomings while making friends.
The essence in the air became agitated as Nero’s eyes glazed over. His mind was rushing along, images highlighting the details he’d been taking for granted flashing through his consciousness.
The entire party paused and stared at him in shock. Seeing someone leveling out in the open, when they weren’t even resting or meditating, was incredible. It wasn’t impossible, but it was so improbable it might as well be. After all, they were currently in the middle of the wilds, which wasn’t really an environment conducive to self-reflection and growth.
Nero felt the ambient essence calm down, and he came back to his senses. After blinking a few times to clear his head, he looked around to see the entire party staring at him in wonder.
Nero remembered seeing the same look on Captain Angelton’s face when he’d been escorting him to the Center back when he’d first arrived in this world. Feeling more like himself than he had in a while, Nero smirked and said, “What’s the matter? Never seen someone level before?”
Wesker didn’t know why, but the look on Nero’s face pissed him off something fierce. He barked, “Allocate your star and let’s go. We’ve wasted enough time dealing with your issues today.”
Not bothering to argue, Nero opened his identity and pushed his fresh star into his confluence without even bothering to check his level stress. He’d promised himself he’d maintain a buffer of at least 5 between his stats and his confluence, and he needed the breathing room if he wanted to clear out the level stress from his mind stats. He was almost scared to look at them.
Name Nero Walker
Level 14
Race Human
Growth 0%
Tier 1
Condition 100%
Age 14
Center 100%
Body 4
Mind 5
Soul 2
Confluence 11
Stars 0
Pillars 1 / 1
With a smile, Nero dismissed his identity. He could feel some residual experience still waiting for him to deal with, but for now, he was content. So much had happened, and leveling really helped him feel a little more comfortable with himself. Despite how stupid he found all the self-help crap, he couldn’t deny that it did make him feel pretty good emotionally. ‘It’s a lot like that one time Jackie dragged me to a spa. After having a manicure, facial, and a massage by a surprisingly angry Asiansian lady, I remember feeling exactly like this. Equal parts annoyed, shamed, and relaxed,’ he thought to himself.
Not willing to hold up the party any longer than necessary, Nero snapped out of his thoughts and said, “Alright, let’s go. Nothing to see here, just me being awesome. Don’t worry, I’ll be here all week. I’m sure I’ll do something else to amaze you soon enough.”
Ignoring the various looks he was receiving, the team resumed their mission. Wesker, unsurprisingly, sped up their pace due his lingering anger at having to put up with Nero.
Time passed, and Nero didn’t even bother with trying maintain his mage-armor. He just wrapped himself in condensed essence like a blanket, and enjoyed their walk through the magical forest. His psychic field was spread out looking for threats, but most of his mind was pleasantly empty of any heavy thoughts.
Or at least it was, until he noticed the ambient essence starting to act weird.
Through his field, he could tell that something wasn’t right. The ambient essence felt… bent. There was no other way to describe it. Everything seemed to flow normally, but it was like looking through a fun house mirror, or a warped pair of glasses. It was extremely unnerving. The closer they came to wherever it was they were going, the worse the sensation got.
Nero broke the party’s stealth by calling out in a whisper loud enough to be redefined as a hiss, “Hey guys, you seeing this with the essence? What the hell is going on?”
Wesker didn’t halt the party, or even bother to respond to Nero’s outburst. He just kept up his march, almost stomping his feet as he refused to acknowledge Nero’s question.
Thankfully Nick was kind enough to reply. “We’re nearing an essence event. It doesn’t look to be a planar rift, or we’d be seeing more manifestations of identity contamination. Unless I’m mistaken, we’re probably just dealing with a simple spawn-point. Keep an eye out for mobs. Spawn-points tend to follow a pattern.”
Nero just nodded, pretending to understand what Nick was talking about. He really hated it when he asked a question, only to be answered with a lecture on something he wasn’t even thinking about. ‘So, the essence is being screwed up by the spawner? Why does everyone hate answering direct questions. And these assholes think I’M rude,’ he thought to himself.
Comments
Leetle Sheet
Wow, a lot of interest in this topic. That's kinda cool. But anyway, I think this interaction is really just about them not looking at things the same way. That's most of where Nero's confusion comes from. It's a running theme that Nero is constantly battling with. This scene is a perfect example. Nero is wondering why the essence looked all weird, as he'd never seen that phenomenon before. Nick can't see what Nero sees, but he realizes that it is probably a result of the essence event they were heading toward. Nero was asking about the essence itself... not the details of what was causing it. Even though Nero is the one complaining... he's partly responsible because of how he words his questions.
Drake
how much more direct can you be. "we're nearing an essence event" than tells him its probably a spawn point, direct and to the point.
Leetle Sheet
haha.... i could just picture Nick's answer being, "Because the ceramic mixture chosen by Meliven Smith for the Belvin Home Supplies Co. tends to suffer embrittlement when heated above 60C... but really it's the rapid cooling that causes the cracks." Meanwhile, Vera would whisper "The dishwasher Nero, some idiot put that plate through a dishwasher when it's supposed to be hand-washed."
Adam Roundfield
like asking "why does this dinner plate have a crack in it?" And being answered with: "The type of ceramic this company uses is prone to getting slightly brittle when exposed to temperatures commonly found in a dishwasher."
