The Kingdom of the Malaise (5)

'What the hell was that about'

I was currently looking up the stone ceiling of the prison that I was stuck in, pondering about life.

The cool wind entered through the metal bars and softly filled the prison cell.

The giant skeleton that was embedded with a spear and the cages hung up by chains did nothing as the wind whistled through the metal bars.

Staring at the ceiling that was embedded with chains I sighed.

Recalling the startling words of the woman who had left I glanced at the fire that slowly burned on eternally.

---

"I have to go now"

Glancing at the sky, an uncharacteristically cold sight filled her eyes as she grabbed the frozen, now thawed remains of the gauntlet and put it on her bandage clad arm.

Putting the clasp of the gauntlet on, she took the giant blue broadsword she had lain besides her with one hand and rested the flat side on her shoulder.

Walking towards the door she paused and looked back at me.

"... Oh yeah... Slade was it? Good Luck in living in this hell hole, hopefully..." 

Pausing she shook her head.

"Yeah, just try to survive in this cursed kingdom"

Heading out of the door she opened the door to the armory and manipulated her broadsword skillfully so that it wouldn't get stuck on the doorway.

"Good bye Slade and may we meet again, For The Next Sun"

Closing the door behind her, she left behind a cryptic message and left me with more questions that I would have to wrestle with and understand by myself.

---

From what I had seen, although she initially came off as a slightly cold woman, she was rather nice and warm.

Her voice be a soothing lilt that I had no doubt was one that would sing lullabies to the children to sleep.

Not that I expected the voice to appear in the body of a rather seasoned warrior that by other standards would be considered rank B.

But than again I hadn't seen a strange power that she used.

Which honestly should've been possible considering the diary of the final late King's words and the history books that depicted the kingdom as a prosperous one.

The Legacy of such a kingdom would definitely make it so that knights of the kingdom had at least one power if not two.

However, her departure allowed me to think for myself and think about things.

'It doesn't make sense'

According to the diary and the state of the corpse, at least a few dozen years had passed since the King's death.

But according to the history books the kingdom had fallen for at least a few hundred years.

Which didn't make sense.

But if one thought about the time loop than things weren't so strange and convoluted anymore.

But the question still remained.

Who had left the kingdom in an eternal time loop?

Falling into thought, my eyes wandered and eventually fell on the furnaces, who's flames had died down.

'It seems it's done melting the swords down'

Groaning slightly, I got off from my place on the cold hard stone floor and cracked my back.

Walking towards the furnaces I grabbed the iron from the furnaces and moved to the crafting bench.

My legs carried me to the crafting bench as my mind was already set on what I would make with the crafting system.

Opening the crafting screen, I moved my inventory next to it and mentally searched for the item I was looking for.

Finding what I was looking for I crafted it with what little iron ingots I had gathered from melting the weapons with gathered wood scraps.

'Now then, let's use the spoils of battle for this'

Grinning as I looked at my inventory, a small stack of purplish stone sat in one of the many slots of the inventory.

The purplish unassuming ore that was piled in my inventory was the results of slaughtering corrupted monsters with my blades.

Demonite.

The same material that the Light's bane was made from.

I only had a few demonite ore that I had gained from slaughtering a giant floating eye before, so I had to settle with less and made a sword instead of armor.

Iron armor wouldn't last long against these monsters and might've as well been paper thin before monsters infected by the malaise.

Everything else iron could stand well enough against.

Grinning I placed the anvil that was made of iron onto the floor and opened the crafting menu.

Opening the crafting menu I brought out the iron ingots and looked for the thing I was looking for and found it.

It was an iron anvil.

Making an iron anvil so that I could craft armor was of utmost importance as the anvil I used to craft the Light's bane, Balanced blade and other weapons was lost somehow.

Sighing I mentally willed the iron anvil to be crafted.

As the metal ingot left my hand and flowed through the crafting screen, a bright flash filled my vision as the anvil was slowly being made behind the scenes.

Feeling my eyes get flash banged I blinked away the periodic blindness and looked past the light.

Floating in the air in a small 2D version of itself.

Grabbing the Iron anvil and not wasting any time in placing it down I opened the crafting menu with relish, getting ready to forge my armor.

Before pausing and realizing that in favor of smelting iron to make an anvil so that I could forge my armor I neglected to smelt the Demonite ore into demonite bars.

"... I sometimes think I'm afflicted by dementia"

After that brief episode of dementia, I now had demonite bars in my hands as more continuously melted in the furnace.

Manipulated by magic powers to turn into Ingots.

I looked at the crafting menu and closed my eyes as I saw the requirements.

'Shadow scales huh?'

I didn't know where I was supposed to get those materials, and I didn't have any clue on how to get more.

But I had a ton of these crucial materials in my inventory, sitting nicely after probably have been looted from the monsters in the battle field.

'That reminds me I should find the bastards that killed me'

A devilish smile made it's way to my face.

I might not have been the nicest person, But I knew to repay grudges.

In this case I would give death to the guys who gave me death.

Closing my eyes I sighed a small smile on my face. 

'Looks like I can make some actual armor'

Calmly massaging my eyes I turned to the screen and looked at the things I could potentially craft with the rest of my materials.

Accounting for the bars that were in the furnaces of course.

'I can make the Malaise? Why is it called that?'

Looking at the yo yo that could be made with demonite bars, I shook my head.

The Malaise was much weaker than the yo yo I had bought from Sky, Code 1.

I was better off using the demonite bars for better things.

'First things first...'

Looking at the armor pieces that were resting at the top I grinned.

'I should make my armor no?'

Opening the crafting menu, I grabbed the items from the inventory and held them in the palm of my hands.

Floating serenely were the Demonite Bars and the shadow scales.

in their 2D digitalized forms one couldn't think that these two had come from the corpses of several monsters.

But they were.

Looking at the icons on the crafting menu that had brightened as they sensed the presence of the materials that would make them.

The smile on my face grew larger as I mentally selected the icons.

However that smile on my face disappeared as something had changed from the crafting process, a small ding ringing inside my mind.

And even though the system that the God of Fun and Games had made me was signaling me of a change.

I witnessed the strange change happening right in front of my very eyes.

Floating through the air, the Demonite bars and shadow scales returned to their natural forms.

Dark blue scales that shone slightly in the dark and large Blue bars of demonite that had white spots speckled on them.

The Demonite bars morphed in the air as if clay and split apart into several small balls, the shadow scales circling around the balls of Demonite clay like silent guardians.

The Demonite clay balls than morphed again, instead of turning into more small balls.

They were hollowing themselves out and forming the general outline of my future armor.

Creating holes in themselves, a gauntlet made out of intricate pieces of the Demonite bars formed in front of my eyes.

The Gauntlets connected themselves up the vambraces as they formed the armor that was situated around the arms.

Forming blue pauldrons that were situated on the top of the arm armor, shoulder pauldrons slowly formed, the demonite pauldrons forming small wings as they did so.

Two such arm's formed in the air as they floated in the air besides the forming chest plate, connecting themselves to the hollowed out connection points that the chest plate made.

As the arms connected themselves to the blue chest plate, the shadow scales that were floating around the chest plate and doing nothing but act pretty as the demonite bars formed the armor finally moved.

Speeding to the chest plate, they focused themselves around the joints that couldn't to be armored due to the effects on mobility it would do.

I also noticed that they went to the edges of the armor and connected themselves to it.

Seamlessly melting into the armor and lining it's edges, the myriad of scales that were put in the making of the armor doing it's job and putting the finishing touches to the armor.

As the magical phenomenon died down and disappeared, slowly letting down the chest plate like a parent to a child.

I could only dumbly stare at the chest plate that was calmly resting on top of the iron anvil.

Taking a long time to pull myself together before reacting.

"What the fuck!?"

+++

I accidentally deleted the entire chapter somehow. ;-;

So the chapter was late and I had to re do the whole thing.

Thank God that my previous save was mostly finished.

Sad tree