The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 140: Reinforcement

Percy sighed as he watched Micky devour the corpses, each of them barely a couple years younger than him. The first one to die might have not even reached adulthood yet. Still, he knew they’d all killed dozens of townsfolk with their bloodline, and they would have certainly continued to do so had he spared them. Had he let them go, he would have only doomed several others in their stead.

“What now? You realize this is going to bring us more trouble, right?” Nesha asked.

She had stuck with him through Rodrick’s interrogation, scrutinizing the information with her bloodline. At first, the guy had tried to mix some lies with the truth. Percy wasn’t sure if he’d done this merely to spite him, or out of love for his family. That said, the man soon gave up after coming to understand how pointless it was.

By now, Percy had a pretty complete picture of House Tantalus in his head. He knew their numbers and their grades – he even had a rough idea of their combat strength and their current posts. It would certainly make his infiltration easier, assuming they survived the coming months.

“What choice did we have?” he asked.

While he’d always planned to take action against the rival House, he’d originally intended to do so much later. Ideally, he would have allowed the situation with the dead guards to calm down, giving himself another year to grow stronger. Sadly, he couldn’t have predicted the old man handing Nesha to those assholes the first chance he got. Was Percy supposed to just let her get killed?

‘Now they’ll come looking for Micky…’

Given the circumstances, his best option had been to let the nobles drag the commoners to the swamp, having his familiar attack them. It wasn’t an accident he’d allowed the two peasants to see the culprit. Now, they’d disseminate the news back to the others, diverting House Tantalus’s eyes away from him and Nesha. For all anyone knew, the perpetrator of both attacks was just a wild beast that had now settled inside the Grisly Bog.

“Next time, they’ll send stronger people.” Nesha said grimly.

It would be dangerous but, at least, they had some time to prepare. Suffice to say, he had no intention of letting the crow bear the consequences alone. Luring the nobles to the bog – away from prying eyes – would only make it easier to ambush them.

Heading back, he quickly noticed some commotion at the centre of the town, a crowd of hundreds standing there. It was rather quiet, considering how many people had gathered. The only thing breaking the sombre silence was a girl’s shaky voice, as she recounted the events in the bog. Her words were interspaced with sobs, a male voice interjecting to add a couple details here and there.

Percy flashed Nesha a glance, prompting her to act a little more distraught too. Her excuse for not entering the town with the others was that she was afraid to do so, given what old Fegan had done. Percy also had his own role to play, having supposedly found his companion hiding by the outskirts of the swamp.

“What the hell, old man?!” Percy yelled as he approached the crowd.

The townsfolk drew sharp breaths upon noticing them. Most of them parted, opening a path to Fegan. One person rushed to stop him, however. It was Mr. Dylan, the shopkeeper.

“Calm down, kid. I know you have every right to be angry, but just hear old Fegan out first. He had his reasons for doing what he did.” he said, placing his hand on Percy’s shoulder.

The latter shook it off, giving him a sharp glare. Truth be told, his opinion of the shopkeeper was good. They’d already worked together over the past few weeks, with Percy having crafted a few knives of decent quality, selling them through the guy’s shop. Plus, they were currently discussing the possibility of importing iron from the neighbouring town.

Suffice to say, he wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of taking his anger out on Dylan, but he had to play his part. Besides, his rage wasn’t entirely faked. Had he and Nesha failed to piece together the town’s situation, she might have really died today.

“Calm down?! What reason did he have?! Somebody had to die, so might as well pick the new girl, right?! Who cares about her?!” he yelled again, looking at the old man.

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Fegan glanced at his feet in shame, as did many of the others. Honestly, Percy understood where they were coming from, but it was still a fucked-up thing to do.

“Everything you say is correct, young man.” Fegan found the courage to speak after a while. “I was forced to choose between kids I’ve known my whole life, and somebody that only got here last month. I’m deeply ashamed of my choice, but I’d do it again.”

Percy snapped at that, approaching him with clenched fists, as more of the townsfolk moved to intercept him. In the end, he didn’t get very close before speaking.

“Listen. I get why you did what you did. But I’m warning you now – If you try anything like that again, we’re going to have a problem.” he spat, before grabbing Nesha by the wrist and walking away.

Only once they were back in the privacy of their humble hut did his expression ease.

“How was it? Do you think they bought it?”

“I’m not the best person to ask.” Nesha rolled her eyes. “My bloodline kept tingling with every drop of bullshit spewing out of your mouth. Though, I suppose it would have sounded somewhat believable without it.”

Nodding, he let her return to her work – she’d been practicing how to draw the space rune over the past few days. That said, a spatial amulet involved multiple enchantments, and she was still some distance away from getting the first one to work. However, she didn’t slack, focusing on her task intently, knowing they were swiftly running out of time.

As for Percy, he had his own concealment rune to worry about, though he ignored it for now, choosing to perfect his newest spell instead.

‘The middle part of the Quarterstaff was too weak…’ he noted, recalling his earlier fight.

It was impressive how he’d managed to deflect multiple spells from the Yellow cores with it, but he understood he owed much of that to Synchronization too. His new trick, on the other hand, could still use some work.

Percy had developed this latest technique partly from Sengo’s teachings, and partly from the Moirais’. Unstrapping a linen pouch from his waist, he opened it, pinching a handful of cyan powder. Naturally, the new spell involved the exotic substance, using it to reinforce his pure constructs!

The idea was that crystallized mana was harder but too brittle to be useable by itself, while uncrystallized mana was too soft. However, what would happen if he combined the two?

In a process reminiscent of the creation of concrete, he used his willpower to blend the two variants of mana together, forcefully combining them. Unlike mundane materials, he couldn’t join them through heat or pressure, but that didn’t mean he was without options.

Percy was essentially performing affinity fusion!

Yet, instead of merging two separate affinities, he was now mixing two variants of the same one. Soon, he ended up with a new material. It was a handful of small rice-shaped grains. They were even tougher than the crystals, making them much more difficult to break.

But Percy wasn’t done yet. The new substance was merely an intermediate step. While it was stronger than its two components, he couldn’t form constructs out of this alone. Next, he grabbed some more powder from the pouch, drawing mana from his core. He mixed all three variants once again, letting the dust settle between the grains, filling the gaps with regular mana to hold everything together.

Via Mana Sense, he carefully scanned the mixture, smoothing out any imperfections, forcing the grains to align, reshaping the “alloy” into a more coherent form. It took him another ten minutes before he held another Quarterstaff in his hand, much like the one he’d used in the bog. Or maybe a little stronger than that, if he was lucky.

‘The only problem is that it takes too long to prepare…’ he smiled bitterly.

His opponents wouldn’t always give him so much time before a fight. And this was just to fuse the existing powder with his pure mana. He still needed to spend several hours producing enough dust in the first place. At least, the powder could be recycled afterwards, to be used in a different weapon or in alchemy. Percy had already retrieved the broken pieces from earlier – they were part of his current stash.

‘Oh well… As always, it’ll get easier with practice.’

Opening his Status, he checked the spell section once more.

Spells:

• [Parting Gift – Crude]
• [Secret Art: Familiar – Crude]
• [Quarterstaff – Crude]
• [Glove – Crude]
• [Reinforcement – Refined]
• [Synchronization – Refined]
• [Mantle of Deceit – Refined]

While his new trick could still use a lot of work, the Status had been kind enough to register it. Reinforcement had taken Crystallization’s spot, apparently being considered a direct upgrade of that. For some reason, it hadn’t been linked to the Quarterstaff itself – perhaps because the new substance could be used more broadly than just that.

It’s my third Refined spell!’

He couldn’t help but grin at the realization. His arsenal was getting more and more ridiculous! Sometimes, it was easy to forget how much stronger he’d grown, as he was always pitting himself against tougher opponents.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Even now, he was planning to ambush a bunch of hostile nobles, while at the same time preparing to infiltrate their House’s warehouse, to steal tens of thousands of elixirs. And all of that, while continuing to hide from the Divine Root. Every bit of it sounded insane – at least, he would have never believed he’d be in this position had somebody told him a couple years ago!

But at the end of the day, it was merely evidence of how far he’d come. And he wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.

‘I’m going to surpass them all, one spell at a time...’