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Chapter 168: Arrivin’

“Nice change of scenery from the mountains,” I laughed as we walked.

“That’s for sure,” Erani sighed. “Still trying to get used to the lifestyle, to be honest.”

As we talked, another pair of people—also adventurers, judging by their leather armor and weapons on their sides—walked past us. I could see one of them—a woman with flowing blonde hair—lean away from us as they walked, while the other—a man with large, bushy eyebrows—walked with his eyes seemingly glued onto us.

I just shrugged at their attitude. I supposed we’d naturally draw some attention, with the combination of our strange appearances and the simple fact that we were new in town.

“Hey,” the woman whispered once they were behind us, “isn’t that those two people?”

My ears perked up at that. Had they heard of us? Had news gotten out about fugitives escaping the kingdom, and now people were searching? I mentally cursed as I prepared myself for a fight.

“Yeah,” the man whispered back to her. “It’s that evil armor guy, right? And the half-woman?”

That made me stop in my tracks. What in the hells were they talking about? Erani stopped too once she realized I was standing back, and she looked at me curiously. I guessed she hadn’t been listening to their conversation. But now my curiosity was piqued, and I wanted to hear what they had to say.

“I think evil armor was the one to attack Tyrus, right?” the woman said. I could basically feel their stares in our backs. “Wow, I didn’t think their descriptions would be so…literal.”

I turned around. “Hey, so are you two talking about us? Or…”

Their faces went red with embarrassment when they realized I’d heard what they were saying. Erani turned and looked at them, too, staying silent.

“Uh…” the woman shrugged. “Yeah, I guess we’ve heard of you, or something.”

“What was that you said about me attacking Tyrus?”

“I just…heard something about it.” She averted her eyes from me.

I nodded “Mhm. That was the drunk guy at the bar, right? The one who I saved from getting the shit beat out of after he collapsed on me? Yeah, no. I didn’t attack him. I’d appreciate it if you cleared that up with whoever said that about me.”

“Uh, mhm.”

Erani leaned in to whisper to me, cupping her hand around my ear. “C’mon, let’s just go.”

“One second,” I said. I could tell she was hiding her voice from them because Distortion Strike messed with it, and she probably didn’t want to freak the people out. I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, but I was genuinely curious about one more thing, and turned to the pair of people again. “Also, what’s up with the names?”

“Hm?” the woman said. She almost seemed afraid of me, which I really wished hadn’t been the case. I’d have hoped that my clearing up the fact that I hadn’t attacked that dumbass in the guild lobby would help assuage her fears, but clearly it hadn’t worked too well.

“The nicknames you gave us.” I waved my hand impatiently, trying to jog her memory. “What was it? ‘Evil armor’ and ‘the half woman?’ What is that? We sound like characters from a children’s bard tale.”

“Oh, um…I didn’t make them up, or anything, so I’m not sure.” The woman shrugged in an over-exaggerated gesture.

“I mean, can’t you tell?” the man said. “You’ve got some weird appearances, and you do some flamin’ weird stuff. People are gonna talk. Don’t get all mad because of that.”

“I’m not mad,” I said. “I mean, I guess I can get my name. ‘Evil armor’ seems kind of extreme, but I guess the spikes make it look sort of bad—”

“Uh, also the part where it kills people?” The guy shook his head like I was the dumb one here. “Isn’t it, like, stuck on you and draining your life force, or something? Sounds pretty evil to me. It almost killed Tyrus!”

“For the last time, I did not—” I stopped myself and sighed. “Besides, it doesn’t hurt me. Sure, I guess it’s stuck on, but it only hurts you when you try to take it off or hurt me. So just don’t do that, and we’re good. Call it, like, I dunno…the self-defending armor, or something. ‘Evil’ is an overstatement.”

“That’s not gonna stick.”

“Anyway, the fuck do you mean when you say ‘half-woman?’” I demanded. “At least you were just insulting my armor. That’s just fucking rude.”

“Why don’t you just leave us alone?” The woman said.

“You were the one to talk about us,” I said. “I’m just asking you to clarify. Maybe don’t gossip if you want to be left alone.”

She sighed. “Her name is pretty clear to me. She looks like she’s barely a person. So, y’know. Half.”

“Also,” the main said, “she’s kinda, y’know…missing a part of her.”

“Okay, yeah, shut the fuck up.” I stepped forward and pointed off. “Leave. Go away.”

“Okay, fine,” the man held up his hands in mock-surrender as the two of them turned to hurriedly walk off. “Just pointing out the obvious.”

Once they were gone, I sighed and placed my head in my hands. “Good gods.”

“We should keep moving,” Erani said simply.

“Sure.”

We turned and kept walking.

After a few moments of silence, I spoke up. “What a couple of fucking assholes.”

“Whatever.”

“No, seriously, where do they think they get off, talking shit about people literally behind their backs? Coming up with those ridiculous fucking nicknames, what a joke. The people here apparently can’t take the idea that maybe some people might look slightly different than them. I mean, we’re adventurers for the gods’ sake! Of course we’re gonna have some weird magic shit going on. Isn’t that, like, a pretty massive part of being a Classer? Why do they care so much? What are they, ten years old?”

“It’s fine, Arlan, really. I don’t care. Just let them talk.”

“Okay, sure. Maybe you don’t care. But what if someone else does? They don’t know who does and doesn’t care. It’s the principle of the matter. Just leave people alone. I mean, seriously, acting like I’m the asshole for confronting them when they were the ones starting shit.”

“Arlan, don’t you think confronting them like that might lead them to just talk more?”

“Oh, I’m sure. Tomorrow there’s gonna be rumors that the big bad guy ‘Evil Armor’ went around killing innocents in the streets, or whatever.”

“I seriously doubt it’ll go that far. But I mean, seems like you’re making more of a problem, rather than solving it. Don’t you think you’re overreacting a little?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe. Just pisses me off. How do you not care about them talking shit about you? I mean, you were the one they were really insulting there. I was furious just listening to it. Sure wouldn’t have taken it if they were saying that stuff about me.”

“There’s just more important stuff to talk about. I mean…my family always talked bad about me behind my back. They didn’t approve of my career choice, they thought I was wasting my ‘talents,’ they thought I was going to die young because I was reckless. But their words never negatively impacted me, so…whatever, right? Who cares? It’s not like they were hiring assassins to kill me in my sleep, or something. I feel like it’s kind of on you if you let that sort of thing bother you. Life happens, people talk. It’s your job to move on, regardless.”

“Yeah, but if someone’s an asshole, isn’t it kind of your duty to at least try to put them in their place? Like, sure, I don’t care. I move on, whatever. But like I said, what if someone else does care? What if these people see me not giving a shit and then decide, ‘well, if he doesn’t care, then most people probably don’t care, so let’s just badmouth whoever we want to.’ And then they ruin someone else’s day with their talk? I don’t want to be the reason someone else feels bad. So if I can stop it from happening, I’ve got to at least try. Even if it makes me look like an asshole to them, I guess.”

She just shrugged, and we kept walking.

After a few more minutes, I spoke up again. “Hey, uh…You aren’t bummed about your arm, are you?”

“‘Course I am,” she said simply. I waited for her to elaborate, but she left it at that.

“Yeah, I guess that was kind of a silly question to ask. But, uh, I want to fix it, okay? Like, seriously, we’re going to figure something out about that.”

“What could we possibly figure out?”

“Well, I don’t know, something. Aren’t there ways to fix things like that? Clerics that can heal lost limbs, or some Spell that can, like, create a spectral arm to do things for you.”

“Clerics that have their Spells that high-Rank are in way too high of demand for us to be able to easily find one in the first place, much less afford one if we do end up stumbling across someone. And a Spell like that would have to be one that I take, and I know for a fact Sorcerers don’t get offered something so crazy.”

I sighed. “Well then, I don’t know…What about a prosthetic? Like, a mechanical arm that’s Enchanted to do what you want it to? You know about Enchanting, is there anything like that?”

“Someone could technically make it, I suppose. You’d need a Divination Enchantment to read the mind of the user so it can take your inputs, you’d need a Force Enchantment—several, actually—to move the thing, you’d need some solid materials and mechanical parts with lots of interlocking joints so the thing can actually move in the first place—and probably a Lightweight Enchantment if you used that, especially if it was metal…Sounds like a lot, Arlan. Like I said, costly. And we’re not exactly rolling in money right now. Especially with Enchantments being hard to come by in this place, I’d be very surprised if we could scrounge up enough money in our lifetimes to ever do something like that. And I don’t want to work for years on end just to regain something I once had for free. I don’t want to worry about that. So…whatever. I’ll just learn to live with it.”

“Well, okay. Fine. But I’m not going to stop worrying about it. It’s my fault this happened to you, so I promise I’ll fix it. You don’t need the stress, anyway.”

She looked at me with a frown. “What do you mean, it was your fault?”

“Well, the whole Demon thing is on me. You were totally roped into it in the first place. Xhag’duul was after me, too. You only got hurt because he was trying to get to me.”

She shook her head. “Arlan, you need to stop blaming this all on yourself. You had no idea that the Demons would invade. It’s not like you intentionally hurt anyone.”

“Well still, it’s because of me. So if your injury is because of me, then I want the reason it gets fixed to also be because of me. That way I’m at least a net neutral, not negative.”

She chuckled. “You’re not a net negative. Also, it’s still not because of you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Back in Kingdom’s Edge, you gave me an out. You put me in a position where all I needed to do to be safe was walk down to the Empire. You even lied to me to try and get me to do it. Now, luckily, Ainash saw through your lie. But it’s not like I was forced to stay behind. Even suspecting you were lying, I could’ve just ignored that suspicion and gone to safety anyway. That was a no-strings-attached way for me to avoid all of this for the rest of my life. And I didn’t take it.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No. No buts. I knew I could get hurt. I knew I could die. Really, I knew I’d almost certainly die. But I did it anyway. I decided to take that chance. I decided to reject that safety. So my arm, my injuries, all consequences that came from that fight and anything that comes after it? It’s all on me. It’s all because I chose this. And now I’m just facing those consequences.”

We kept walking in silence for a moment. Eventually, I spoke up.

“I don’t care.”

“What?”

“I don’t care that you’re saying this is self-inflicted, or just the natural consequences, or whatever. At the end of the day, it doesn’t come down to who’s responsible for it. I don’t want you to have to deal with not having an arm for the rest of your life. So I promise you I’ll fix it. You have my word, alright?”

She sighed. “That’d be nice, I guess. But I don’t think I’m going to be getting my hopes up.”

“Alright, fine. I’ll drop it. Just…don’t lose hope completely, alright?”

I saw a hint of a smile on her somber face. “Okay. Thanks, Arlan.”

I reached over and pulled her sideways into an embrace. “Of course.”

We got to Ainash around an hour before noon. And, with the rest of the day ahead of us, we set off. We’d informed her of what we expected to see from the Goblins—at least, what we’d heard from the gold-degree who told us about his experiences with them. I still wasn’t entirely confident in the details of his story, what with his admission to making at least some of those parts up, but some information was better than none.

Following the directions on the job request, we took a few sideroads and detours until we eventually crested a hill to see a forest off in the horizon. That forest was, apparently, Goblin territory, all of it. They’d originally not been much of a problem, just having a fort made up against one of the mountains, but randomly, only a week ago or something, they’d begun rapidly expanding their territory more and more, until it encompassed the entire forest, up to the edges of the treeline. Anyone who went in there was vulnerable to be attacked by them, and either killed or robbed.

“Well,” I said with a shrug, “let’s head in.”

We walked forward, under the canopy of leaves, where the high sun barely gave light to the overgrown path.

“Damn,” I muttered, looking around, “not surprised people get ambushed all the time in here. The thick foliage doesn’t even let me see ten paces out.”

“Yeah, not exactly excited to fight in here.”

“Index,” I said, “keep an eye out for us, will you? Make sure we aren’t walking into any traps, or whatever.”

“On it!”

“And Ainash, you can feel the emotions of nearby beings, right? Think you can tell us if you feel any Goblins?”

“How can I tell difference between Goblin and not Goblin?”

“Well, I’m not totally sure. But apparently they’re pretty smart. Smarter than a normal monster, at least. So maybe they’ll feel more Human in their thoughts?”

“Will be looking for any almost Humans!”

“Great, thanks.”

We continued marching through, with Ainash doing her best job to bushwhack ahead with her whip, swinging it in small arcs to cut away branches and leaves that’d grown over the path so we could at least walk without tripping. Erani needed the most help moving along, since at least I could use both arms to push the plants away. She had half that. I really hoped we could find a way to get her at least somewhat back to a healed state. Or find a workaround, or something.

Threshold reached.

Your Bond with Level 32 Draconiad has deepened.

Due to your Bond being deepened, it has undergone the following changes:

Stat Increase: From 10 to 12

XP Gain: From 5% to 6%

Heat Resistance: From 26.6% to 31%

Threshold reached.

Your Bond with Level 32 Draconiad has deepened.

Due to your Bond being deepened, it has undergone the following changes:

Stat Increase: From 12 to 14

XP Gain: From 6% to 7%

Heat Resistance: From 31% to 35.2%

“Woah, what in the hells?” I said aloud.

“Father, you are stronger now!” Ainash looked back and smiled at me.

“What is it?” Erani asked.

“The Bond just Ranked up. Twice. Totally randomly, it feels like. I wasn’t even thinking about Ainash.”

She frowned. “That’s weird. Well, it’s good, obviously, but weird. I wonder what happened. Ainash, do you have any idea?”

“Oh, uh, I might.”

“What is it?”

“Father, you and mother like each other a lot.”

“Well, uh, sure,” I said, feeling my face involuntarily grow red at the frank statement. It was honestly embarrassing to blush at something so plain, but that only made me blush more, making a sort of stupid vicious cycle. I shook my head, and continued, “But I’m not sure what that has to do with the Bond. I thought it didn’t care about other people.”

“Well, but I notice that you and mother like each other. And I felt sad that I like mother but still think you are weird. It is unfair, since mother thinks you are very nice! And when I think that, you get stronger!”

“Oh. Oh, I get it.” I suddenly realized what she meant. “So I guess in this case, the Bond was held back less by how I felt about you, and more by how you felt about me? Because you thought I was…weird, I guess?”

Erani laughed. “I didn’t realize my endorsement mattered that much.”

“Oh, wait,” I said, “if the Bond Ranked up, that’s actually a really good thing.”

“Well, of course it is,” Erani responded with a frown.

“No, like, specifically right now, it’s better than it usually is. Remember our fight with Xhag’duul? We can exploit this to effectively cover twice as much ground as possible. Clearing out a whole forest of Goblins…We could easily get this whole job done before nightfall.”

“Well then, let’s hear it. What’s your plan?”