21 Chapter 21
The calling of dibs, unfortunately... Didn't work as my system loudly pinged. [Warning! Failure to claim Gate of Skye.] [Do not press claim on eldritch portals without reaching the level of claiming powerful realms without needing to conquer. As the eldritch entities on the other end will violently respond to your claim to their territory.]
I couldn't help a slight pout at that, but I took heart in the fact that my Gumiho realm claim was still being processed so thankfully that meant that the Jade Emperor hadn't blown it up to 'regain face' or some nonsense. "Well, time to go meet the locals," I muttered to myself as I continued walking towards the well-protected western medieval-style fortress/city that was surrounded by a thick wall that I could tell was enchanted with the way it had almost rainbow-like lights streaking across the walls.
But as I made my way towards the deceptively far city I realized why just delivering items had a hefty reward as while I made my way across the rather craggy and uneven ground, within the crevices of the pitch black stone ground I heard a loud series of hissing noises.
And then there was a silence as I tensed and then I flew up into the air as from the shadow under my feet erupted a massive spider with ten legs each bristling with uncountable razor-sharp hairs.
"Kusanagi," I called and I felt the divine sword naturally fall within my hands as I swung my arms downward with zero pauses as Kusanagi knew exactly how to fit in my hands and there was a tiny distortion in the air before the spider stiffened as a verticle line was cut through it and took as it twitched. It lost half its legs and a small part of its central body.
'Kusanagi is definitely a blade worthy of being called divine.' I thought as I realized how the wind blade Kusanagi sent into the spider didn't cost me any mana to use at all.
Even as I landed back on the ground I threw an Observe at the spider-like being to get an idea of what in the hell it was as it was a monster I had never heard of. [Nach, Lvl 35] [Nach are the primal born of the Eldritch God Atlach-Nacha. Warning its venom causes damage to mind and soul.] Thankfully I could read system prompts extremely quickly in like less than a split second and understand the contents... But seriously? Did I have to worry about the Eldritch Pantheon now?
A loud hiss rang out from the spider and then I used my water elemental to summon a curtain of glowing blue water as the fucking spider spat a basketball-sized glob of glowing purple venom that hit the water wall of my Elemental and I could feel the elemental buckling under the debuffs of this place and the soul and mental damage the venom was causing it.
Without another thought, I flash-stepped forward and landed atop the spider's head and then I rammed Kusanagi into the head of the spider through one of its dozens of eyes making it scream an unholy thing that made my ears hurt. But then the spider abruptly stiffened and dropped to the ground fully as I twisted the blade sending a wind blade within the spider's main torso to blend up its organs.
"Ah... Hell no. Eldritch Spiders?" I shuddered at the side of the corpse and even as I picked up my pitiful loot I could hear Kusanagi within my mind trying to console me.
But regardless I took a breath and continued... And not even twenty meters later. "Scree!" A lancing screech rang out startling me but as I whirled around, I was clad in a barrier of wind as Kusanagi said in a drawl.
"I only have so much stored wind Jake, I cannot do much down here underground." She said as her wind barrier blocked a fucking swordfish of all things that had leaped at me from the ground and even as it was impaled on Kusanagi's sword and flapped about in the air... I could see how its fins easily pushed the obsidian-like stone beneath it aside as if it were just water. Allowing it to literally swim through the ground with little to no effort.
"The monsters down here, do not follow human and realistic logic, Jake. Only hard concepts such as Karma, Death, and Life are forced upon them to allow them to exist on our own plane of existence." She advised me and I grimaced before nodding and with a twist of her blade I no longer supported the fish in the air on the flat back of her blade and as its weight fell on her sharp end, the eldritch fist was cleaved in half.
With Kusanagi's warning, I wasn't surprised anymore when monsters kept attacking me. And as I killed my dozenth monster with the large crab coming out of a thick mist that came out of literally nowhere... I realized why the delivery mission paid so much simply to deliver supplies as flight down here didn't work even for supernatural creatures that had wings as the astral mana that flooded the realm would seemingly endlessly increase the gravity on a person the longer their feet were off the ground.
So it's not like someone like a fallen/devil/angel or any other race with wings could fly there easily. And with the Gate of Skye above, you couldn't just teleport to the city of Secretus directly either. You needed to make your way through Pedway first and then cross the clearly monster-infested surroundings of craggy hills to get to the city.
Hell... With how craggy the surroundings were with the constant ditches and holes in the ground. I doubted even off-road vehicles could trek over it to say nothing of how such a loud thing would get every monster in a decent vicinity to jump your transport.
Eventually, I reached the fortress that was seemingly at the center of the swirling galaxy above us in the Gate of Skye, and standing guard in front of the city were three younger-looking men.
"Hey, I got the delivery mission for you guys!" I called out as I got closer and I saw the guard's hands on their spears loosen as the one with more ornate leather armor strode forward and raised an eyebrow.
"Where is your cart? Or are you using magic to transport the supplies?" He asked quickly and I raised an eyebrow at how his face twisted at me supposedly using magic to store the supplies.
But regardless I answered honestly. "Uhh, using magic?" I answered.
"Shit! Didn't the notice tell you not to use magical means of transport?" He demanded and after looking back in my memory I was sure there was no such thing after checking my system quest, and even my Continental App, there was no such warning I showed the guard my phone, and his eyes twitched at seeing there wasn't any warning. "Dammit! Those bastards are fucking with us again... Well, empty your storage spell, the items within are probably twisted by the astral mana that permeates between dimensions or whatever." He said with a grimace.
I froze as my heart went cold at the thought but after mentally checking my stuff... There were no such astral infections or distortions and my system helpfully pinged. ["The pocket dimension used to store the user's effects is based in an alternate dimensional timestream. Unless the user decides to throw an intergalactic-sized black hole into the inventory, the user's inventory is impervious to common interference.]
So with that, I brought out a frozen pizza to display to the guard captain and his eyes widened at the sight and he offered a hand to inspect the pizza. Which I had no problem with. "No tentacles growing off it? The pocket dimension is temperature controlled? Hell, the food isn't even moldy after taking days of traveling in a cart to get here?!" He said in wonder and my face twitched at how fucking ridiculous he was making this out to be.
"Come, on it took me less than three or four hours to walk here alone and that's with dealing with the monsters. How the hell does it take someone days to get here?" I asked flatly and the guards all looked at me in amusement.
"Bro..." One of the younger guards spoke with a wry smile. "The Gate of Skye is an interdimensional portal to Outsiders that slip past the Dragon Gods... This whole cavern is their territory, when a convoy comes through delivering supplies, the very space between the entrances to the central cavern. And to the city of Secretus get spatially stretched like fucking playdough so people and supplies can be picked off by monsters and worse, the 'sentient' eldritch."
I didn't have anything to say about that. So I just shrugged and looked to the guard captain who continued to inspect some more stuff I took out and with him looking stumped I spoke up. "My storage method is more akin to a Sacred Gear so maybe that's why my stuff is fine," I explained and his eyes lit up in understanding.
"Ah! That would make sense. Well come with me, I am going to lead you to a warehouse and you can drop off the supplies and then I can take you to the leader to get your payment." He said happily. And thus he led me into the city after giving me a weird rubber-like band that I had to have heat treated to fit onto my wrist that all people had so that shapeshifters wouldn't be so easily able to take people's form.
"Alright. Drop off all the stuff you got, so I can record the amounts and determine the payment." He said and I raised an eyebrow and then a loud clattering noise rang out as upon the table set out for the goods I walked over with my hand hovering over the tables dropping off literal piles of preserved foods, snacks, frozen meals, and even the stacks of military rations I got from the Gumiho realm that I liberated from the mercenary and Yuki-Onna clan when we bugged out of the realm with the threat of the Jade Emperor smashing the realm.
The guard captain's face went from joyful to shocked to looking... Faintly irritated he realized he would likely need people to help him count up everything in a reasonable time. "Alright, that should be enough supplies for the guard to keep going for a solid couple of months. But I need to get a couple of buddies to mark all this up. But... Hmm." He stroked his chin as though in thought before shrugging. "Alright, go on ahead to the center citadel and tell the guards that Captain Rodrick sent you there to talk to General Esdeath, I am going to call ahead."
He shrugged and said frankly. "By the time you get there, and get to General Esdeath I will have everything sorted out and can message her security to give the payment to you." He explained and I nodded in understanding leaving the guard to go to the warehouse's wall and taking out a mounted phone off all things to call for help to count the stuff up while I made my way through the city.
The city of Secretus... Was honestly like a more fortified Yharnam from Bloodborne, the structures were a dark hardy stone that was apparently magically resistant along with being very physically durable. The city was lit up beyond the galactic light show from above, with gentle dull yellow lights that cast great shadows.
But unlike Yharnam, the city of Secretus had small shops open everywhere, with the shops being raised off the city ground by a good four or five meters by stairs. And at my thought process, Kusanagi seemingly picked up on it and whispered to me mentally. "The basements below the stores are probably deathtraps designed to kill any shadow or tunneling monsters that seek to get beneath the buildings."
I nodded in understanding and after seeing a magical materials shop, I decided to head in to see what they had to offer.
"Hello!" A... Very young woman's voice spoke out as I entered the shop and at the back of the shop I saw a girl who looked like a pre-prepubescent but with a quick observation, I learned the girl's shape was just their natural form as a fae. [Etriks, Lesser Seelie- Lvl 42] "Can I help you find anything in particular?" She asked and I paused before answering diplomatically.
"I appreciate the offer. I am looking for materials to use in golems and constructs." I answered carefully avoiding saying 'thank you' or anything else akin to owing actual gratitude to the fae and in doing so the lesser summer fae pouted.
"General Esdeath will string me up, flay the skin from my bones then, and pack me full of iron ball bearings and salt if I steal people's freedom just for saying thank you... But anyway!" She said, while still continuing despite that scary-as-hell statement. "Are you making flesh puppets, mechanical, or something else?" The fae asked letting me know she knew her stuff when it came to golems at least.
But to say the least... I had plenty of Gumiho flesh sitting in my inventory if I wanted to make flesh golems, so I didn't need the eldritch flesh to make cameras that could see through clothes thank you very much.
But as she showed me to the metals I heard Kusanagi hum with her whispering to me. "See if she has any star metal. It will likely be expensive though." She warned and I mentally sent an affirmation and asked.
"Do you have any Star Metal for sale?" I asked.
The fae raised an eyebrow and looked me up and down and said unsurely. "You don't look like a high roller or some kind of big shot. What in the world do you want Star Metal for?" She questioned and my lips twitched as just because I wasn't in a set of armored robes or having stupidly large pauldrons that didn't mean I was poor!
I just shrugged and she hummed before speaking frankly. "Well I do have a good couple of pounds of Star Metal, but what do you have to trade for it?" She asked and I just realized I had no fucking clue what the economy of this city was.
So instead I defaulted as she mentioned trade and knowing I was going to be dealing with Morgan at some point I had stocked up on some more honey and with clatter, I placed a dozen large jars of all-natural honey onto the table making the fae's eyes widen at the sight.
"Honey...? You want to trade simple mortal honey for Star Metal?" She questioned after a long moment in which the young-looking girl looked, oh so longingly at the stack of jars.
And in reply, I shamelessly nodded as I spoke. "How often does pure unfiltered honey get down here with the distribution issues huh? And this is the city of Secretus, the best area to get Star Metal... I mean how long have you been holding onto it? Why have something taking up space in your shop when you can get enough honey that you can enjoy it daily for probably a couple of years if you don't just eat whole globs of it every day." I spoke 'logically' And as I did so, I twirled my finger on the top of a jar of honey.
As though teasing its opening. With the sight breaking the fae's will as they nodded with an unwilling expression. The girlish figure jumped off their tall seat and ran into the back of the shop.
"So what's Star Metal do?" With the fae gone, I mentally asked Kusanagi why she wanted me to get it, and she mentally hummed before responding quickly.
"It has the ability to create mana while under the night sky and make more power the brighter and clearer the stars are." She explained and I blinked at that explanation and extrapolated more out of the explanation than she gave as I had been working with materials for a good bit now.
So basically if I made a weapon, armor, or even used a bunch of enchantments in a golem. The Star Metal within the item would make it more powerful during the night and in a golem could actually power the golem without me needing to manually refuel the golem mana storage gems.
A minute or so later, the girl came back with a fist-sized black stone that had silver streaks going through it, and without a word, she placed the rock on the table and then quickly moved the jars of honey into probably cubbie holes or something inside her desk. "Good doing business with you." I said with finality and the fae snorted obviously not too happy at getting their weakness taken so advantage of. But regardless I took the icy cold, and also somehow burning hot stone into my hands and put it into my inventory as I left the store.
After I got out of the store though I shook my hands to get the pain of the icy/burning while Kusanagi snorted as she scolded me. "Don't touch eldritch items with your bare hands stupid. Star Metal is reflective in the state of being in both extreme flesh-shattering cold, and molten heat so be glad that it hadn't been under any stars for probably decades and lost its charge."
I couldn't refute the nagging sword... And maybe I was getting why her wielders would stupidly leave the possessive sword behind when going on a quest. They didn't want to get nagged at, all the time for all the stupid shit they did.
"Well, that should be enough time wasted... Time to do my main missions here." I muttered as I made my way to the main citadel while mentally making up plans to investigate the Greek Demi-Gods in the area. Along with gathering information on the wielder of Excalibur Blessing to see if I could deal with them. Or if I could just steal the sword and leave with it.
The people here in the city were all definitely supernatural in some way or another, even the dogs being walked in a hurry by their owners weren't just normal dogs with their heightened levels. Which made sense as while I was getting close to the citadel I felt my instincts warn me of something and I hopped into the air and landed on a light post as a few meters from me, something slammed into the thick sidewalk I was walking on, on its underside pushing the large sidewalk block up and making it fall to the side with a heavy thudding noise.
But as the horse-sized beetle with eyes growing its carapace on its back, came up into the street. Hissing with lethal intent at the people who looked at it. I could only smile wryly as more than a dozen people laughed aloud and talked about free materials to sell as they ran in with weapons that they drew from their sides and began tearing apart the eldritch monster.
"This city probably has better fighters than the Gumiho Realm did altogether." I muttered to myself as I finally made my way to the citadel and as I looked around, I saw how everyone was over level fifty according to my 'observe' which meant that they were the equivalent of having the magical, or physical power of a three to four tailed Gumiho.
And for humans that meant that they certainly had a good bit of training and control over that power as humans didn't gain power nearly as easily as any of the other races did.
The citadel was a large massive French Gothic Cathedral that looked a lot like the Notre Dame but as I looked at the colored glass windows. I realized the windows were actually a system of large runic systems that absorbed the astral mana radiating freely from the Gate of Skye from above.
When I was done gawking, at the sight above me. I continued into the citadel with a bit more trepidation as I knew that the rune systems had obviously over however many years they had been working. Had absorbed a truly great amount of power.
Seeing a line of secretaries behind a rather plain stone desk at the front of the lobby, I walked over to an empty one and I spoke softly. "Hello, I am here for the payment for turning in a supplies mission. Captain Rodrick said he would be calling ahead?" I said and the woman shifted some pages before nodding as she held a finger to something on a page.
"Yes, you have been penned in for a meeting whenever you got here as today is one of the slow days for General Esdeath." She said and then explained how for me to get to the 'generals' office.
And with nothing else to be said, I made my way to the general's office near the center of the citadel and after going through a series of checks to make sure I wasn't a shapeshifter by holding rods made out of salt, silver, and cold iron. And not getting terrible burns from the rods, I was then allowed by the office guards to enter the office.
General Esdeath... Was basically her namesake, she had long light blue hair that went down her back. Matching eyes and she was wearing a flattering almost military-style uniform that had a low skirt and her dress jacket was open to display her voluminous cleavage.
"Yes... I know." She drawled at seeing my expression and seeing me blink she said flatly. "My mother seeing Esdeath from Akama ga Kill changed my body and true name to match her..." I threw an Observe at her and her words proved correct. [Esdeath? - Daughter of Khione, Lvl 100+]
'Woah, someone who was over level hundred?' I thought before dismissing the prompts and my thoughts as I nodded my head in understanding to Esdeaths words. "Hello then. My name is Jake Barriss, and I am here for the payment as well as to speak with you about something." I started off and as Esdeath dropped a small sack of coins that clinked loudly on the table. She waved a hand as though to tell me to speak freely.
"I am a mercenary of sorts, and-" Seeing her eyes roll as we were all basically mercenaries, but regardless of the eye roll I still continued undaunted. "I was given a mission by Chiron, to bring the Greek Demi-Gods... More specifically the Olmypian and Ares children back to their camp."
Esdeath's eyebrow raised at my blunt explanation and she snorted. "Well good on you for being honest. The Greeks and other Pantheons regularly try to snatch my soldiers for their 'camps' to be their own weapons as I train my men and women to be the strongest they can be... Either way, we are all well aware of the Greek, Roman, and other camps for other Pantheon's demi-god children. So we are also aware of the Pantheon's love for wiping their demi-god's children of their memories of other factions."
Yeah... I remember that plot point in Percy Jackson where Percy and some other people had their memories fucked with so they could be switched between the Greek and Roman camps. And of course they received no apology for that, nor any real compensation.
Either way, before my thoughts could continue. Esdeath cut them off as she spoke up after letting that sink in. "The Olympians won't do anything. Secretus needs to be well fortified lest the astral infection spreads further into the world... The Greeks know all too well with how the mortal version of Atlantis and the inter-pantheon system of cities in the Antarctic had to be glassed by gods of destruction to wipe out the Eldritch Pantheon's influence... And even then, Antarctica is still uninhabitable for any faction, due to the Eldritch presence being strong there."
"Well, thank you for the understanding, and useful information," I said with thanks clear in my voice as I picked up the coin bag and dropped it into my inventory.
With the payment done, typically this would be where I made my goodbyes and left but instead, Esdeath hummed as she folded her arms under her large breasts and pushed them up slightly as she considered something, before speaking again. "So. After further testing, we are sure your method of transportation isn't something that the typical astral mana can infect... I am interested in knowing something, would you be willing to act as our pack mule using your magical storage system on a short three-day culling mission?"
At her question I raised an eyebrow as this was a bit out of left field but as she coughed and said confidently. "Of course your safety as the quartermaster would be paramount and I would have you in my own large two-room tent that you would be carrying in your storage. All so you would be in the safest place." She tried to assure me and I finally got my thoughts in order and asked bluntly.
"You guys are going into an area so thick in astral mana that just having shit out in the open leads it to being infected right?" I asked bluntly and her lips twitched but in the end she nodded weakly and I sighed and then followed up with. "And what kind of nonsense will you be leading me into?"
She raised an eyebrow at my almost arrogant demand but she bluntly answered. "An aborted star fetus has landed here... Basically a lesser Eldtrich being who had the potential to become a 'sentient' being but during the birth something went wrong so the Eldritch god giving birth to it. Gave up on it and threw it through the portal here as a weapon." She answered bluntly making my lips twitch in disgust at the explanation.
She shrugged and then added on flatly. "They are rather weak so long as we kill them before a moon's cycle, so at best they will be at mid to high class on the supernatural class in terms of lethality... But regardless they are a valuable sources of alchemical regents that keep this city afloat with the factions paying dearly for the corpses of things that had the potential to become a god no matter how alien it is."
"Alright. I agree, what is the pay or remuneration?" I finished with a weak smile and she gained a teasing grin as she leaned forward slightly and said with her voice going husky.
"Oh? And the privilege of sharing my tent isn't good enough payment?"
But in response, I couldn't help but grin as I said shamelessly. "It's certainly a great deal, but looking and no touching, in return for possible loss of life and limb isn't that practical."
Esdeath's response was a loud snort and she waved me away with her saying with humor clear in her voice. "Oh, you are adorable Jake. We are leaving in a couple of hours so get some rest... But as for payment." Esdeath mused before shrugging and took out another sack of Continental coins and shook it. "How about three times the previous payment for the delivery to be on retainer for the next three days?"
I didn't have a problem with that so I took the money and then went to a waiting room with a nice bench against the wall to rest my eyes as more people filtered into the room over the next couple of hours that were obviously going to be on this little purge mission.
But as I was taking in the soldiers that were under Esdeath's control, I heard a loud male voice chuckling as he came into the room followed by a group of three women, and as I looked at him... I realized, that was the guy named Hypno who was son of the Roman god of dreams. Resting at his side was the highly ornate gold, silver, and blue sword of Excalibur Blessing clear as day.
'I can admit he has good taste though.' I thought wryly with my lips twitching as I took in the arrogant weasels harem and realized they were all mature human women... With very generous proportions and a motherly vibe to their motions as they simpered after the man.
