48 Left Alone

Galahad stretched himself for a moment, feeling incredibly stiff after finally achieving a full night of rest. He went downstairs and had to blink his eyes a few times before getting used to the light when the swung the door open.

In front of the door was the older gentleman who owned the villa, and what Galahad could only assume was one of his grandchildren. It was one of the boys from the day before that was playing in the corner, currently standing behind the elderly man.

The man seemed rather disgruntled as he was using his cane to knock loudly and immediately pulled out his market tablet when Galahad opened the door. His actions clearly signified he wanted another payment so soon.

After spending a second absorbing the situation Galahad frowned at the man, wondering why he was acting so brass.

"Son, you've been in there for two nights already, I need you to pay for the extensions before you can be allowed to stay any longer."

Galahad's stomach garbled at him in agreement to the old man's statement, He felt like he hadn't eaten in well over a day. The owner wasn't lying, Galahad had actually been sleep for not only one night, but also an addition day as well.

The audible sound it made distracted everyone at the door from his shocked expression. He paused for a moment before simply nodding and paying his dues.

"My apologies. I didn't realize I slept through the whole day." Galahad pulled out the crystal plate from his pockets and paid for both the previous day and the current one.

The old man's wrinkled face seemed to ease up, glad Galahad wasn't attempting to scam him out of paying. "Yeah, well I never intended on kicking you out yet, just gotta make sure my patrons aren't starving to death in one of my rents. You're welcome to stop the main house for lunch this afternoon."

Galahad nodded and smiled, now understanding the man's tension at the start. If someone owned all these villas and had to deal with people that constantly try to skip on pay, He'd become pretty blunt at asking as well.

The old man and grandchild then walked away, Galahad catching a few of the old man's words on being careful about customers scamming a free stay if they aren't careful. Galahad let them be, as he was finally given a chance to take a nice long look at the riches of his travels.

*****

In the kitchen of the villa was a small wood stove, a two person table, and a rather shoddy sink. The water that came out was a little murky when it pooled in the sink, gurgling slowly down the drains.

Galahad wiped a lot of dust off the table before careful organizing all the items he had collected.

In total of gear; he managed three different kinds of chest pieces, two twin daggers that looked to be worth a bit, four pairs of arm braces, one fitting pair of leg bracers, a pair of plain leather boots, and other smaller items, including an enchanted blue mask.

He grabbed the mask that thinking the faint sensation of mana meant it was magic armor of some kind. As it turned out, the blue mask was only enchanted, by someone no powerful than his mother. The mask could stick to a person's face without assistance of any straps. It held no magical properties or enhancements greater than that. It wasn't even a full mask, it barely covered much except from the area around his forehead to right across his nose.

He took a look at his reflection with the mask on and noticed it resembled the upper portion of a skull, giving a rather odd look to his green eyes piercing through, reminding him of a skeletal undead's head being abused by blue children's paint.

The time for lunch was fast approaching when Galahad finished trying on his new equipment. In the end, he found a light leather armor jacket that fit nicely without too much restraints, the other stuff was too heavy or bulky to his liking. He put on some arm bracers that looked and felt similar to his old one's, the only difference was they didn't hold his Karmic plate on the inside of his forearm.

'Yeah, I am not making that mistake ever again. I need to keep this thing somewhere where it will survive an explosion.'

After put on the rest of the gear best suited for a scrawny looking battle class like himself, a bell went off in his head.

[ Armor Set Detected: Do you wish to equip in your Armor Slots? ] [ Yes ] [ No ]

'Armor slots . . . Didn't I unlock those the first time I leveled up?' Galahad recalled a long while back to when he first discovered the weird affects of the black orb. He earned them after finally achieving level two.

Most of his old gear was cut off of his unconscious body back at the medical center, the rest was charred and burned to ashes. Galahad paused for a moment of thought before curiously accepting the offer.

Suddenly Galahad regretted his decision as he felt a shiver run through his body and he watched his body change in grotesque horror.

A black sludge, was leaking out of his every pore in his skin and quickly encasing everything on his body. No matter how hard he tried to get rid of it, the material refused to leave him and kept spreading rapidly. His whole body was covered and nothing was visible for a unknown amount of time, then the process started to reverse like time was running backwards.

He thought it would feel cold and sticky as it started to flume back into his skin but he felt no different. After five seconds, Galahad looked around to find his body was spotless, no trace of the weird event.

There was also no trace of his new armor.

'What the absolute fuck?!' Galahad was both confused and concerned. He just earned all that armor, he was really going to need it to go into the dungeon or deal with situations like Dante. He still had faint pains in his ribs despite consuming all the mana orbs he could, now all he had left was the ones too high level for him.

Galahad was about to start raging at all his hard work being lost, but then another window chimed before chaos could begin.

[ Armor converged to Slots in Status: (Hidden) Do you wish to reveal armor? ] [ Reveal ] [ Continue to Hide ]

Galahad was still stressing out, he wanted his armor back immediately. He couldn't let his hard work disappear because of the weird Karmic plate structure and weirder magic in his brain. After a heavy inhale, he confirmed reveal and the sludge returned.

This time the living black liquid only ran along the areas his new armor was located. He wasn't blinded this time and he watched the black material harden and reform back into the armor like it never left.

In the time it took for the material to return his armor, Galahad barely had time to blink at the transformation. He inspected the armor to find nothing wrong with how it was, everything kept the same shape and densities it had before.

The only difference was everything was dyed in a dark black shade, the miscellaneous colors were gone and everything matched the shadowy colors he tried to stick to back when he was only a support mage. Keeping to the shadows was somewhat his style during battles and now his gear wouldn't ruin that for him.

Whether or not the color change was his influence or simply a happy coincidence, a wild grin grew across Galahad's face as he finally realized what this all meant.

'I should've figured this out way back when. The "armor slots" were housing spaces I hadn't had a chance to use since most of my old gear was trashed. I can't believe I waited this long to figure out what they meant. It's fucking instant deploying armor!'

Galahad was excited about this now, he wanted to see how well the transformation worked repeatedly. He played with an imaginary little switch in the back of his mind and watched the armor appear and disappear over and over again. All he had to think was 'reveal' and 'hide' as the key phrases for it to work. The darkened gear appearing and disappearing function worked every time, and he would have kept going on until he noticed he left something on the table.

The sky-blue skull mask was still sitting was the other miscellaneous objects. He put it one again and felt it vacuum-suction to face thanks to the little array etched into the inside.

'I wonder if this would work too.' He thought while waiting for the chime.

[ Head Armor Detected: Do you wish to equip in your Armor Slots? ] [ Yes ] [ No ]

After a quick explosion of black sludge on his face, the mask was swallowed and disappeared. He made it reappear and looked at his reflection once again. The mask was now black and had a glossy shine that matched the shine of the magic sword's sheath. Galahad's face kept stretching into a grin beneath his mask, giving the skull a creepy smile.

'I am starting to think this black orb might not have been so bad.'

*****

On the roads Far East, Neita Lilgrey was finally getting out of the office to start traveling to Teramore. She had to persistently ask her boss about taking a carriage down to Teramore one more time, explaining she thought maybe more to the story.

At first her boss, Knaughtler was annoyed by the thought of applying the expenses for just her with a driver and a carriage, but after the constant scry messages and pestering he experienced, Knaughtler was willing to pay the damn carriage fee with his own money. Five days had passed and Neita was finally heading back to the road.

Neita had a tablet with her and a couple tiny crystals with the information she acquired from the first trip. They gave her a good sense of who to talk to without her heartless partner on the assignment.

She kept thinking about what she was gonna ask without trying to come off as suspicious or suspecting Galahad of lies. She believe something else happened in the dungeon and he might not even have realized it. By the end of her first day traveling, she conjured a whole list of people and questions she could ask them.

Neita was going to the main office of the guild to see any possible updates on the files, or if something new came into view. After gathering what she could, she'd stop by the Count's office and the Mystroff Shop. She would circle back to the survivors and see if they could recall anything new, maybe Galahad could give more insight about what truly happened. She kept rehearsing the questions and possible conversations that she felt her brain starting to fry.

She told herself to take a breathe, her chance to feel better about what had happened back in the medical center was slowly approaching. After so many conflicts, she finally felt relief with what she was doing. The problem didn't seem so difficult now that she was doing what she felt was right.

'Then again, most of my issues revolve around Malex. I don't understand how he can be so hurtful towards other people, especially after what everyone else has to go through in the dungeons. Even when Galahad sat there so blankly, it just hurt so much to watch. Well . . . at least he seemed on board about me going back to see Galahad and Venora, actually he actually didn't argue or sneer once.'

"Strange . . . Maybe he does care in his own rude way."

"What was that madam?" Shouted the driver from the outside of the carriage.

"Oh, nothing. Just looking over papers."

"Very well, just letting you know we should be in Teramore by tomorrow morning."