Level 1 Fallen

Chapter 211: Old Enemies?

With Diane and Bella both wanting to continue training their new combat tactics, I teleported us to the distant hill once again after leaving a sentry behind in my room to serve as an alarm. I didn’t have Roku on my friends list, or even knew if he could be added to that list, so I needed to make sure to leave a sentry behind in case he showed up.

At the same time, I showed the two of them my new draconic form, which forced both to hastily retreat to avoid being crushed beneath my growing bulk. Originally, I held some hope that Many Faces would be able to let me turn back into a half-orc body. Unfortunately, changing from a giant dragon into a normal-sized humanoid seemed a bit beyond the ability of this skill.

Admittedly, Many Faces is just the grandmaster version of a glorified makeup kit. If I were to use a skill like Transform at a high level, it would surely be enough to change my physical body to that degree.

Regardless, I sat down in my draconic form to watch them train, while I myself continued tinkering with puppet designs. I felt like I might as well keep myself busy while the others practiced.

A few hours later, I noticed a knock on the door of my inn room through my sentry. I let the other two know, then quickly changed back to my normal form and teleported back to my room just as Roku opened the door. “Oh, good, you are here,” he said in a relieved tone, his wooden hand gripping the handle of the door.

“Were you able to find out anything?” I questioned, though I hadn’t expected much, given how little time had passed.

To my surprise, Roku answered in the affirmative. “That’s right. I’ve narrowed it down to two guilds, based on the activity of its members throughout the city. The first is the Nine Suns guild. They migrated from the northern continent over a month ago. According to the others around town, some of its members were unaccounted for at the time of the incident, including a few that would match your description.”

“The other group is the Twilight March guild. They were originally from this area, and have a lasting feud with the Questing King. Like the Nine Suns, many of their members were unaccounted for at the time of the incident.”

“Given that this happened quite late into the night, such absences would not normally draw much attention, as they could simply be logged out. However, the members in question were seen both before and after the incident in various parts of town. It was only at the time immediately around the incident where they were completely unseen.”

“Both of these guilds have lasting feuds with the Questing King after he interfered with their own quests. Although there were some other players that met the criteria at the time, none of them had a motive that could be confirmed.”

I listened to Roku’s report, perking a brow at the name of the first guild. “Nine Suns? I’ve had a little bit of interaction with them, though none of it is recent. I’m not even sure if they’d recognize me at this point.”

Back when Players first appeared, I killed a few members of the Nine Suns. Though, this was before anyone knew who I was. Later, I killed a few others I met in the field, but I believe that I was hidden at the time.

As for the Twilight March, I had never heard of them. To my knowledge, there should have been no connection between me and them. That said, they didn’t really need a connection if they were either targeting my trait or wanting to cause friction between myself and the Questing King.

“What are you planning to do from here?” I asked, unsure how the investigation would proceed.

“First, I will compile a list of names for the missing individuals during that period, as well as their faces, and allow you to see if you recognize anyone. Though, if they went to all of this trouble, they likely used some method to alter their appearance. Regardless, I will have my people continue to listen for any clues.”

“Aside from that, there is one other matter that I would like to talk to you about,” Roku began. “The lord has heard of your presence here, and has asked if you would be free to meet this Thursday at six in the morning. He apologizes for the early hour, but it is the latest that he will be free to meet with his schedule.”

I offered an approving nod in response to that. Diane had already mentioned that the schedule could likely end up like this, so I was not too surprised. “That’s fine. Where should I go to meet him?” Since this was happening on a Thursday, Diane wouldn’t be available that early, and it would probably be best to leave Bella behind to protect her identity as a Fallen.

“The lord’s palace in the heart of the city,” Roku spoke with a happy tone. “I’ll be sure to inform him of your attendance. Is there anything else that I can do for you while I am here?”

“Not that I can immediately think of,” I shook my head. “Just to let you know, though. We won’t be staying in the city for the next few days. Since we were already targeted once here, we’ll be living remotely. As you know, I can rapidly construct lodging, and it is more convenient for us to train in large, open areas. If you need me for anything, I’ll try to stop by regularly to ask the innkeeper here.”

Roku hesitated, before slowly nodding his head. “Yes, I can see why you would prefer to handle things this way. Honestly, I cannot fault you, nor will I ask for the location where you are staying now. Given the current situation, I imagine you don’t have the utmost faith in our sincerity. After all, you were technically attacked on our watch.”

“That’s only a small part of it,” I shook my head to refute the claim. “While I can’t be a hundred percent certain that your people are not involved, it is true that we need the space. Diane is practicing her puppet control, and I need quite a lot of room if I am to train anything. It’s just more convenient to remain in the same place we’ll be training.”

I made sure not to say exactly where we were going since the training area was still part of the same kingdom as No Strings Attached. We could potentially get in some trouble for building a house there. But, if anyone complained, I could just use World Walker and have us set up a base in Fallcry instead.

Roku paused to consider this, before giving a stiff nod. “I see. I’ll pass your words along to my lord.” After saying that, he turned to leave, and I let out a small sigh before returning to the hill where the others were training. 

“How’d it go?” Diane asked idly, holding her hands out to manipulate the puppet with various subtle hand gestures. It was still rather clunky in how it moved, but she seemed to be learning the general direction.

I explained Roku’s findings, as well as the scheduled meeting with the Questing King, and finally my decision to have us stay out of the city for the time being. Diane patiently listened while Bella continued her silent sniping, the former mirroring my thoughts. “I don’t think I’d have time to socialize anyways, even if it wouldn’t break character for me. That said, I’m not sure how far our training will get in just a couple of days.”

“Is the puppet that hard to control?” I asked, and Diane hesitated.

“It’s not just the difficulty in controlling it. I also have to think about how to integrate it into my combat strategies. Training like this is helping me with my wire control at the same time, so it’s not at all a loss. Though, with you here in your dragon form, our experience is shooting up more than ten times faster than normal.”

At that, Bella looked back. “Speaking of your dragon form, what’s your new breath like? Since it’s not bound to any one skill. Your old ‘king’ form gave us a blessing with the breath, but most of them were offensive, right?”

I paused at that, blinking. “I actually hadn’t tried out my breath attack yet.”

With that said, I decided to remedy that issue immediately. I transformed back into my dragon form, looking at a distant cluster of three golems walking together. I didn’t know if it would reach that far, but there was certainly no harm in trying.

Taking a deep breath, I forced out the familiar feeling of a breath attack. A multicolored beam of energy shot out, crashing into the trio of golems in the distance. Within the beam, I could make out various shades of blue, yellow, red, black, and green.

Once the beam finished, it was immediately clear that this was certainly not a buff ability. The ground where the golems had previously stood was now scorched, with the golems nowhere to be seen. Though, this also meant that there were no bodies to loot.

Diane watched this curiously, still controlling her puppet as she spoke. “It looks like it condenses every skill you have into one attack? Or, at least the ones you can actually use. It probably wouldn’t touch your magic ones, since you didn’t keel over in pain with your throat exploding.”

“...Could you not put that image in my head, thank you?” I asked, looking at Diane with wide eyes. Recalling what happened when I created the enchanted menu, my head might have quite literally exploded if the breath tried to forcibly integrate my magic skills. “Still, I probably won’t be using it much if it destroys the bodies. Not being able to loot a target would be a real waste.”

“Especially now that you have that card thing, right?” Bella added, causing me to blink. She was right, I had almost forgotten about that. I had yet to receive a single corpse card from my scavenging, so I had nearly forgotten that was even an option.

“I’ll worry about that later,” I decided with a shake of my head. “If I run off to start harvesting like that, you two will lose out on the experience buff.” At the moment, my main ability to help them was to provide them with this experience boost, letting them elevate their skills to a level where they would be usable in real combat.

The other two looked at me briefly at that, but soon returned to their own training. Meanwhile, I sat down atop the hill and began focusing on more puppet modifications again.