READ WEBNOVEL Chapter 369 - A Wanted Man
Eric took a shuddering breath, his body trembling with a glorious sense of vitality, every muscle tingling with the desire to MOVE! He wanted to shout for all he was worth, tears leaking free of his eyes, the doomed, broken boy of just an hour ago a bad dream burst like a soap bubble for all that starlight, not sunlight, caressed his ivory white complexion as golden laughter filled the air.
His own.
He took a deep breath and couldn’t quite hold back a smile. Reveling in all the ways he had grown, deliberately not dwelling on the incredible opportunity some would say he had passed up on like the galaxy’s greatest fool.
Yet all he had to do was take in Mags and Amy’s awed expressions, the looks of fear and wonder in half a dozen faces, those who hadn’t outright fled, to realize just how precious each and every life that called this world home was. Their hopes and dreams, the adventures they would savor and endure, the stories they would one day tell their children and grandchildren as life’s great story continued for countless generations of loving mothers and fathers and excited children eager to embrace all that life had to offer. Countless precious stories of hope, salvation, and happiness that nearly a billion people still clung desperately to. A treasure far to precious to burn on any single tyrant’s mad ascension.
Even his own.
He hung his head, filled once more with a curious mixture of fiercest triumph, glorious vindication, and heartfelt shame.
In the space of a single glorious night, he and his mother had singlehandedly saved their entire race from galactic extermination.
Right before sending countless billions of desperate souls screaming to their deaths as they consumed the lives and entire biospheres of not just as single planet but a full dozen.
So many screams.
Countless desperate panicked sobs from innumerable goblin serfs and myriad others that had no stake in the malice embraced by faction leaders and those scrabbling for power. Goblins that wanted only to live with a measure of peace and embrace whatever measure of happiness, or safety, their bitter miserable lives would allow for.
Only for them all to be frozen in blackest ice, or burned alive by transcendent flame.
Eric shuddered and looked away, closing his eyes against the hot sting of tears he absolutely refused to shed, caring nothing for the disparaging snort from one of the pair of rogues his now sensitive mind had sensed gazing his way with mercantile avarice.
“Look at that kid. Golden hair, perfect fucking physique. Naked as the day he was born,” sneered the taller rogue, earning a slow nod from his fellow.
“So what was with that damned glare? He a weak ass mage that misfired his spell?” The second rogue crossed his arms, glowering Eric’s way. “The way I see it, I suffered a fair amount of pain and suffering thanks to his miscast spell. Anyway you look at it, blondie over there owes us. All of us.”
“You got that right, Hank,” Said the taller one, before turning to the others. “You all agree, right? That kid hit us all with his stupid ass flash spell and half of you look like you got third degree burns. Way I see it, that little trouble maker’s a criminal… and he owes us. All of us.”
Eric stood perfectly still, refusing to turn around. The bitter caustic brew of vindication and regret plaguing him was an unwanted burden that he happily put aside for the needs of the moment, deciding to let it all play out. EAGER to see how the chips would fall before making his way to Queensland and checking on the one person who mattered most in a world full of precious people he would do whatever he could to save… and predatory assholes he was downright eager to put down.
“Are you fools fucking stupid?” Asked a disbelieving Mags when several additional former captives began murmuring that the naked blond-haired youth clearly shivering in the cold did indeed owe them, and that he’d better pay up, one way or another.
“Let’s not even worry about the fact that that kid probably saved our lives, ‘Hank’. That mana burst he unleashed was the farthest thing from a flash bomb. If you think that was a simple cantrip you can shrug off like nothing, then I get the feeling you’re going to get exactly what’s coming to you.”
Amy nodded, rolling her shoulders that Eric could make out perfectly fine thanks to Infravision and a gloriously absurd 391 Perception. It was fine enough that he could sense her subtly checking her formerly injured wrist, as if testing how well it had healed in the time since her capture, in case she had to make use of it.
“You didn’t see the way that kid swung his saber. But you better believe I did. Anyone with a Fighter Class could tell you that he can use his weapon far more skillfully than any scrawny kid has a right to. And even if he did look like he barely had nine strength when we first saw him, well, he sure as shit doesn’t look that way now.”
His tight smile grew with genuine admiration when her patter led her to the very saber she had mentioned, picking it up and giving a couple of lazy moulinets as if to prove her point… while simultaneously arming herself so casually that no one thought anything of it, save perhaps the rogues who suddenly seemed to realize that she was both armed… and dangerous.
“The woman’s got a point, Juan,” said Hank with a soft whisper. “I don’t know, maybe the kid was saving his points for some reason? Chasing some stupid ass title? Even if he didn’t look like a classer at all ten minutes ago, he sure as fuck looks like one now.”
Juan snarled and spat, glaring Amy’s way for long seconds before abruptly chuckling. “You know what? Fine. It’s been a long night for all of us, hasn’t it? Maybe we’ve all done some stupid shit we shouldn’t have, and even if that kid was an idiot charging that slaver head on, and nearly getting us killed with his foolishness, when all’s said and done, we’re still standing, so maybe that does deserve some forgiveness.”
Hank gave a relieved nod. “You hear that kid? You’re square in our books. Just watch where the fuck you set off those light bombs in the future, you hear?”
Amy gave an approving nod, resting her saber against her shoulder but casually keeping herself between Eric and the rogues, a smiling Mags fingering her own wand by her partner’s side.
Juan scowled. “Alright, let’s stop worrying about naked boy wonder over there and figure out where the hell we go from here. Because with the goblin decree in effect, none of us dare return to Freetown, and in case you geniuses didn’t get the memo, New York is several hundred miles away and we’d have to travel through multiple high level territories to get there.”
“I heard they have an actual mage’s academy in Solaris territory!” Said an excited voice coming from a thin youth that didn’t sound older than ten chipped in excitedly, before being hushed by the woman beside him.
“Quiet, Philip. That’s just a rumor, and we’d have to enter Sylvan territory to go there,” the woman by his side gently said.
“But mom…”
“Hush!” Her voice snapped with the authority of a parent strained to her limits in a world where a single mistake or lack of discipline could lead to tragedy of the worst sort.
“Yes, Mother,” the cowed boy immediately said, before being wrapped in the protective embrace of his shivering mother, neither of them wearing sufficient clothes for the bitter chill permeating the air, for all that Eric, with his shockingly high Vitality so close to 500 with what amounted to an 80% bonus with every additional point he put into it, didn’t feel the weather as anything but a gentle tingle.
“Kid’s right,” Juan said. “Dodging slavers is one thing. But in case you all didn’t get the memo, pretty much every non-Sylvan faction’s declared war on the Sylvan Alliance. You do not want to get between musket wielding orcs, ten foot tall ogres, and whatever the hell else is out there and their chosen prey, or else you’ll find yourself in their cook pots just as quickly as they’d boil an elf.”
Eric cracked a tight smile, his own growing sense of anxiety heightening as he now sensed multiple bands of red approaching Queensland despite being slowed down to a crawl by the ice cold blizzards now howling through the entirety of his sister’s territory.
As much as he wanted to do the right thing, for the sake of the idealism of a fresh start, in sheer defiance of the calculating cynicism and blinding fury that had driven him to such furious excess, embracing rapture and pristine madness by his mother’s side… he would only allow himself another minute to waste here before doing what needed to be done.
“So let’s head to Ashland!” Another voice said excitedly. “I heard they actually have a wealthy tier dungeon, and I’ts open to anyone who swears an oath not to attack the…” The youth’s voice died off as Hank snorted.
“That’s right. You can run their rich tier delve, so long as you give the owners a cut, and swear not to attack Elonia Silver or anyone of her faction. Which means that they’re elf affiliated. Or maybe they’re outright part of the Sylvan alliance. So you’d better believe that when the goblins and their allies are finished with that territory, it will be nothing but clan favorites allowed to run that delve, with steel collars like the ones we wore for everyone else.”
“Here, kid, I think you could use these,” said Amy, whispering softly at Eric’s back.
Eric smiled and turned around, finally getting a good look at the twenty something woman who stood up to his chest, chestnut brown eyes widening as a flush crept up her cheeks when a smiling Eric calmly took the shirt and pants that had clearly seen better days. But Eric wasn’t in any shape to be choosy, grateful that the pants didn’t rip like the shirt did, even if the waist required him quickly poking a new notch in the belt and his thigh muscles did threaten to burst the seams.
Amy swallowed. “Yeah. So um… you’re dressed now. You doing okay?”
Eric winked. “Never better, and thanks for the save.”
Amy blushed prettily. Mags rolled her eyes. “I think it’s we who should be thanking you. We clearly owe you… even if a couple of knuckleheads don’t exactly see it that way.”
Hank scowled. “Who you calling a knucklehead?”
He then hissed, rubbing his head when Juan rapped it. “Ow, what the fuck, man?”
Hank’s scowl turned to a look of alarm when he saw the look of genuine fear in his partner’s features, spinning around to see the source of that fear… only to catch sight of a calmly smiling Eric.
His features grew pale as he quickly grabbed his partner’s wrist. “So… yeah. Alright, maybe it’s best if we split up so we’re not too obvious if any other bands of slavers head our way, you know? Hell, I know for a fact that there are a dozen farming towns in every direction, all we have to do is walk carefully and keep a sharp eye out.” He gave the others a halfhearted wave. “So, yeah. Good luck, everyone!”
With those parting words, Hank and Juan quickly parted ways with the others.
And a smiling Eric wasn’t so stupid that he couldn’t guess exactly where they’d be going.
“Shit,” Amy hissed, sighing as she gazed at her partner. “I think we just got put on a timer.”
“Oh no… they wouldn’t, would they?” Said the anxious sounding mother, holding her would be wizard of a ten-year-old boy close.
Her words earned a handful of worried stares from the others, all of them wearing either tattered clothes or rawhide armaments that had clearly seen better days. All of them were survivors, Eric sensed, yet none of them, not even the classers, had been doing anything more than just barely scraping by, as best they could, with too many forces arrayed against them, and Eric’s own territory advancements having no time to shine or grow in fame before his foes made their final furious push. Frankly, he thought it a miracle that the word about Ashland had gotten out at all, considering the steps that Greed had clearly taken behind the scenes since the very start.
So it wasn’t surprising that the same fear and despair he sensed from the mortals was nearly as strong in the classers who had clearly gone up in level the hard way, all of them Conscripts below level 12, save for Mags and Amy, who had actually managed to evolve into standard classes and were closer to level 20.
Mags – Lightning Mage - Level 18 – St 12 / Vit 20 / Qui 19 / Fin 14
Amy – Warrior - Level 18 – St 25 / Vit 25 / Qui 30 / Fin 20
Congratulations! Identify is now Rank 3!
Eric assumed most of Mag’s points were in her Mana Pool, and Amy’s stats were about standard, assuming she had achieved the Warrior Class the hard way and had been smart enough to plop some points into Perception.
Mags scowled. “Did you just do something? I felt something prickling down my spine.”
“What’s this about a timer?” Eric said, changing the subject, the anxious look in everyone’s eyes making it damn clear what Amy had meant. But best she be the one to say it aloud.
“It means that those assholes are probably heading right back to Freetown, eager to bargain for the right to stay on as collar-free citizens, so long as they point the powers-that-be to the too pretty blond-haired blue-eyed boy that’s on far too many wanted posters.” Amy blinked. “But you’re eyes… they’re not exactly blue, are they?”
Eric grinned. “I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Mags gave a curt shake of her head. “It doesn’t matter. The point is that it’s damn cold out, none of us have any safe place to go, most were fleeing Freetown out of desperation more than anything else, running ourselves ragged avoiding trouble as best we could, before those fucking slavers ambushed our attempt at a camp, meaning that fire and shelter, no matter how well we thought we had arranged it, with all our wilderness skills in play, are right out!”
“Then we’ll freeze to death,” said a second young mother despondently, holding a softly whimpering two-year-old in her arms as a tired looking youth who couldn’t have been any older than a college freshman, radiating the potency of a basic Conscript still in the single digits, held her close.
“I had so hoped that when I dared the pod last month…”
“Which was damn stupid,” his partner hissed.
The boy flushed. “We hadn’t eaten anything in days! And it wasn’t so stupid as you might think. My brother survived the pods… even if his asshole corp had left him to die on their second run. Anyway, I had thought that things would finally be better. That we’d have a chance. All I needed was to kit up and dare the public delves with a decent crew. I had made a few friends I would porter for, when they had the spare copper to hire me. They said that if I was actually crazy enough to dare the Freetown pod, they’d take me on. But that starter so-called low interest loan I took… thinking it would set me up for success, like a college loan, you know? Investing in myself?” The youth gave a bitter chuckle, shaking his head. “That was just the beginning of the end.”
The girl nodded solemnly, tears in her eyes.
“Goblin loans are deadlier than anything you’ll face in the dungeon,” Amy solemnly said, squeezing her partner’s hand. “Believe me. We learned that the hard way.”
The young Conscript shared a rueful smile with the two clearly more experienced Classers. “Well no point in worrying about insane penalty fees and interest rates now. The goblins have basically declared all humanity their slaves. So what do we do now?”
Amy flashed a tight smile. “That’s a damn good question.” She turned to Eric. “Well, considering that you and my girlfriend are the only reason why we’re free of those damned collars… and that Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee are probably heading to Freetown right now to scare up a posse to hunt down your ass… any ideas?”
Eric grinned. “So glad you asked,” he quipped, confidently striding to the wagon and earning more than a few looks of curiosity and dismay when he began scribing sigils on the wooden plank.
“Wait, is that cat doing magic? That mean’s he’s definitely a Classer.”
“Shut the fuck up, Kent! That’s necromancy. They banned that art, remember? If we’re caught anywhere near him…”
Eric tilted his head up to meet the young, frightened mother, holding her little one so close, gazing at him with wide, frightened eyes. “Actually it’s blood magic, not Necromancy. Though I have absolutely no doubt that our enemies eager to grind us under their heel will happily attempt to ‘outlaw’ this, just as they did our other heritage art.”
He turned back to his crimson sigils, giving a satisfied nod. “The question you all have to ask yourselves is whether or not you’re willing to obey edicts put into play by parties that would rather see us screaming in eternal agony than us living prosperous lives. If they have their way, our souls will literally be suffering hell’s torment as we’re forged into soul steel, which is the whole point of the goblins’ savings and loan plan, by the way. They seek to entice everyone into contractual obligations that leave them not only penniless but eternally in debt to enemies every bit as ruthless and malevolent as demons clamoring for your souls.”
He blinked, as if struck by sudden realization as everyone looked his way in horrified fascination. “That’s right. Those malicious bastards really were planning on not just humanity’s genocide, but eternal torment, all so they could make a profit. Maybe I don’t need to feel so bad that the goblin faction is about to face a very sharp decline in their influence, even if the idiots down here don’t know it quite yet.”
Amy scowled. “Just what the fuck are you talking about, kid?”
Her furrowed brows widened with awe. “Wait, The wagon… it’s warm! You can feel the heat coming off it like a camp fire!” She gazed upon the wagon with something close to wonder as the pair of mothers didn’t hesitate to clamber back inside, first testing sigils with tentative touches.
“It doesn’t burn. It’s warm, so very warm, but it doesn’t burn my skin! And Lea likes it!”
Her partner held her and her baby close, setting them down against one of the sigils before turning to a pleased-looking Eric… then, much to everyone’s surprise, he kneeled before him.
The youth swallowed, staring at Eric with anxious, hopeful eyes. “If you can provide my wife and daughter with food and shelter, I’ll happily fight under your banner… whoever you are.”
Amy blinked, gazing at Eric with eyes that took in everything, even as Mags cursed softly under her breath.
Eric grinned, gently patting the boy’s shoulder, and totally not expecting the wince. “Well, let’s introduce ourselves first, before anyone goes swearing any blood oaths. My name’s Eric.”
The youth grinned. “My name’s John. I know I’m not much yet, Only a level 5 Conscript, but just give me a chance, and I’ll..”
Eric smiled, gently cutting off the young man’s words with an upraised hand. “First let me make it clear, John, to you and everyone else, that I’m not looking for followers and that I have no interest in the Path of Rulers.” John’s features fell with something close to despair. Eric could hear all too well Amy and Mags exchanging heated whispers as he spoke on.
“But what I can say is that I’d be more than happy to take all of you to a place of shelter that, if memory serves, still has quite the larder, and it won’t be going through its stores anytime soon.” His smile hardened. “Head’s up, though. Once we get going we’ll be moving at a fast pace, and I might stop from time to time to take care of any business that pops up.”
“And where exactly are you going?” Mags pointedly asked.
Eric cracked his knuckles and winked. “Oh, I think you already figured it out, Mags. Feel free to share.”
Mags froze like a rabbit before Eric’s gentle smile for long moments before shaking herself free of awkwardness, clearling her throat, and saying aloud what Eric knew she would.
“He’s Eric Silver, an outlawed necromancer accused of numerous war crimes against all the major humanoid factions. He’s also the most wanted man in the entire Northeast Quadrant, with a hundred thousand gold bounty on his head, posted just tonight.”
Eric smirked at the wide-eyed looks this earned him. “Actually, all bounties were supposed to be voided per contractual agreements previously made, but of course our enemies think nothing of violating their own treatises on the one night they can actually get away with it. As for the other accusations…” He gave a thoughtful nod. “All true.”
His playful smirk turned hard and cold. “Because I refuse to play nice or adhere to anything like a fucking Geneva convention against enemy factions who’ve done all they could to destroy our civilization, enslave our people, and take over our world!” He clenched his fist tightly, glaring at the suddenly terrified-looking survivors before him. “Monsters like those who use our own contracts and codiciles only to defang, demoralize, and destroy us, deserve nothing but death, and I’ll commit all the so-called war crimes you can imagine, so long as at the end of the day those fucking bastards are off our world and we are free once more!” The last he said with a roar, earning frightened looks from the mortals present and fierce nods of agreement from almost all the classers, John’s fierce high five which a smirking Eric happily clapped became a rueful wince when his girl pulled his ass back down on the wagon seat next to her, whispering furiously into his ear.
John flushed, giving Eric an abashed shrug.
“So what, you’re planning on racing right into the thick of it and getting us all killed?” A disbelieving Mags asked. “You do know that there are literally thousands of enemy soldiers out there! At this rate, the elven faction, no offense, won’t even last the night!”
Eric had the gall to smirk. “Maybe that would have been the case before, but I wouldn’t count us out just yet. Now, you all hopping on the wagon or staying to freeze to death here? Because the express train to Queensland is parting in less than thirty seconds.”
Amy and Mags traded disbelieving looks. “He’s serious.”
“As the grave,” Eric solemnly declared, before glaring down at the pair of fallen slavers. “And that reminds me…”
“Surge Centuria! Imperator Imperat Tibi!”
The air filled with nearly a dozen screams and curses when the mangled, burned, and thoroughly shredded remains of the pair of slavers began bubbling and twisting as bones and gristle cracked and popped, flesh sealing itself back together as the pair of formerly slothful malicious slavers stood upright once more, now radiating a fearsome potency in death that they never had in life as their eyes blazed with eldritch flame. Each of them held twenty foot long spears, falling to one knee and slamming bronze gauntlets to the breast plates they now wore as they belted out the phrase that warmed the cockles of Eric’s heart.
“Ave Imperator Abedimus!”
“Damn right you do,” Eric cheerfully agreed, his smile growing hard and cold. “Til the day earth freezes to ice and the stars fade from the skies above. And if I have anything to say about it, that won’t be for a long, long time indeed.”
Eric then coolly turned around, halfway expecting to see the entire cluster of survivors fleeing or gazing at him with numbed shock. Sure enough, there was plenty of the latter, but none of the former, and when Eric coldly said. “Get in the wagon or freeze to death out here, because let’s be honest, those are your only two options.” Not a single one hesitated to get in.
Not even when Eric took a few seconds to remove the bridles and gear from all the horses, freeing them with gentle final impressions of lush fecund fields to be found in nearby Ashland territory, before taking hold of the harness and traces and turning back to the wide-eyed group of passengers.
“I’d recommend you all brace yourselves. Because I might have reinforced the carriage to withstand significant speed, but without a sturdy bone carriage frame, I’m not going to risk you all rolling over in flight, so we’re doing this the old fashioned way.”
Amy was staring at him with disbelief. “You freed all the horses. You goddamned fuck! You doomed us all to freeze out here!”
Eric gazed at her for long moments, tilting his head. “Seriously? That’s what you think?”
A suddenly anxious Mags began pulling her partner down to sit next to her.
Amy just gazed at Eric for long moments before shrugging. “Honestly, I don’t know what to think.”
Eric chuckled. “Well let me take care of that for you.” With that, he turned around and began to walk at a fast clip, sensing multiple eyes widening wit surprise at just how effortlessly he pulled the carriage in his wake.
“No fucking way,” John whispered, sharing a look with the other classers. “Just how strong is he?”
Eric couldn’t help smirking at that, knowing a cue when he heard one, taking time only to head toward a hardpacked dirt road covering what had once been a highway before his fast walk became a slow jog, slowly gearing up to a steady sprint.
He ignored the startled cries and curses he heard behind him, concerned only with his Tier II Structural Integrity perk making it clear that his rune-enhanced wagon was in no danger of breaking under the strain as he began racing along what were now snow covered plains, knowing that Ashland was less than five minutes away at his present clip. Eric frowned, less than pleased to sense that any number of reds had flooded his prized territory, which he knew he should have expected, on this night of all nights.
But that wasn’t why his sprint picked up to a pace that had half the occupants in back shouting out in surprise. It was the contingent of Reds he could now sense rapidly approaching Queensland.
Reds that should have been stopped cold by the howling storms that had blocked off over a thousand other enemies. Ashland was the territory truly in peril, or so he had thought. A territory that was more potential than not, at this point, with his friends already fled.
He thought it meant that he had time.
He had clearly thought wrong.
Because the smaller group that had abruptly changed course and were now heading straight to the palace, the howling storm doing nothing to slow their progress at all.
Eric’s heart pounded, struck by a surge of fury and dismay. He had clearly spent far too many minutes relaxing, regrouping, savoring being treated, just for a moment, like any other classer. Any other survivor. He had dared to relax on a night that allowed for absolutely no breaks at all, hoping to plant the seeds that, in the long run, would have done as much for Ashland as anything else he could have managed in the next thirty minutes.
The good news was that he should still have time. Time enough, thanks to his Speed Racer Perk, to get these refugees to safety, plant a few embers in the winds of rumor to fan a flame that will have half the world Roaring Ashland's name by season's end... and dash to his Sister's side in just half the time it should take a certain handful of reds to arrive at their destination.
Nonetheless, it was everything he could do not to dash off in a mad sprint right then and there.