ALL NOVEL Chapter 21 (Crime and Punishment)
At that moment, the nearly invisible tentacles that had been lying in wait burst into action, swarming up the men's legs, burrowing into their flesh to continue deeper into their targets. The tall man's hand moved wildly as he lost control of it; still, the light at the tip of his wand continued to grow until it burst forth into a beam of fire that shot harmlessly into the canopy of trees above.
A system notification sounded out in my mind.
System>
Multiple compatible energy sources found. . . (success)
Raising soul integer failed
{Unknown energy sources detected}. . .. .
{Use found}
{Strengthening Skill} [Monarch's Reach]
System:>
I could feel my body getting stronger as even more tentacles appeared around it. With that, I dashed towards the group, closing the distance in an instant.
The view in front of me was nothing short of gut-wrenching. The men were tearing off their clothes and scratching at their skin in an effort to get the foreign invaders out. I knew from experience how terrifying it was to feel your energy taken away from you. The two goons had collapsed on to the ground, the taller one had resorted to rolling along the ground as if he thought he was on fire
I stooped down, grabbing one of the daggers the small man had dropped while sprinting toward the leader who was still standing. His expression showed that he was in the same amount of pain as the others, but unlike them, his eyes held a look of consternation before they sharpened for a moment, and he let out a cry.
[Garrett] (the punk leader) “Enough!”
In an instant, a shockwave shot out from around him, tearing patches into his clothes and creating a gust of wind that swept through the grass, sending leaves blowing past me. At the same time, I could no longer feel the connection to any of the tentacles near him. Looking at his skin, I could see why. Blood was dripping from holes along his body where the tentacles had entered and extended. Taking a breath, he pointed the tip of his blade at me again. Its tip reflecting the fire from the treetop above. The man lashed out towards me, throwing out a series of punches with one hand while raising his blade in the other.
I dodged to the side, avoiding his fist by a few inches before bringing the black blade I had grabbed upwards into his hand, sending a spurt of blood to in the air before a silver glint slashed through it towards my neck.
[Garrett] (the punk leader) “Die, you monster.”
The man put the last of his energy into swinging the mithril blade that denoted him as a high-ranking member of the Roaring Flame Guild towards the thing staining in his blood below him. As he thought to himself, she should have gone for my neck; now that she’s slipped up, it’s my victory. Unfortunately for his last remaining hope, as the blade swung down, it hit nothing but air. Letting out a gasp, he fell over into the grass, the dirt around him turning into reddish mud as it mixed with the blood that was dripping off his body. Above him stood the shadow of a woman in a black dress, ash floating around her.
I looked down at the man as I pulled my blade out from his calf. Flicking the blood off it, I looked up and saw that the fire in the treetops had gone out. Huh, that’s good; I almost thought I was going to have to deal with a forest fire too.
Kicking the man on the ground, he didn’t let out any sounds, but I could see his chest was still rising, so at least he was alive. Picking up his dagger, I sent a few tentacles into him just to make sure before walking to the other two who had stopped their struggling.
Stooping over the little man first, I couldn’t help but squint at the little white lines that were wiggling under his now shallow skin. The eyes glaring up at me told me everything I needed to know about his current state. Hey, don’t look at me like that; you're the ones who attacked me in the first place. Besides, I’ve gone through the same thing; have you ever heard the saying “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”? While grumbling to myself, I picked up his other knife. Holding two knives in one hand, I realized that the dress I was wearing didn’t have any pockets in it. Sighing as I considered tossing one of them away, I spotted a pouch on the man's belt. Finally, some practical clothing. Reaching down, I undid the man's belt much to his shock. His eyes went as wide as his condition would allow as he attempted to vainly struggle away. Ignoring this, I kicked him over before undoing his belt completely and putting it around my own waist. Our size difference meant that I didn’t have any more room to adjust it, but I managed to get it to fit all the same. Though it did cause my dress to stick closer to my body, it wasn’t uncomfortable.
Going through the pouch while I walked to the last man, I didn’t find anything of importance. Though while looking through his wallet, I found that apparently, his name was Tiffany. I was tempted to keep the small amount of change I found in the wallet, but ended up deciding against it.
Throwing the wallet into the woods, I examined the big man. He was covered in dirt from rolling in the grass. He was in the same state as his fellow, but he didn’t offer any resistance. Instead, his eyes showed only fear as if he was looking at a ghost.
When I picked up his item, I suddenly got a system message.
System>
(User is incapable of using the current item due to current class/skills/traits)
I walked to a sunny spot in the trees to get a better look at the item.
Heh quite the nice lot of items they had here, unable to suppress my smirk I examined all the things I had, erm, reclaimed, from the thugs, it was like a pile of gold had just fallen into my lap, however just as I was going to take a deeper look at some of the effects, I felt a twinge of air press past me, as an arrow whizzed by sticking some ways away in the dirt, though it didn’t seem to have been shot with enough power to do much damage, ti wasn’t the only one as suddenly more and more arrows started to wizzed about by me, some of them falling to the ground nearly in front of where they were shot others flying wildly about around me, the whole scene was hectic, and I could barely understand what was happening.
In a split second I decided what to do, and with a burst of speed I ran towards the bushes and what met me was a bunch a strange looking green creatures, in front of me armed in shabby clothes with shabby weapons, I think for a split second I had forgotten I was in a rift, quickly checking my map my heart rate spiked at there were 8 total red dots, four right next to me, and worse four by the knocked out thugs, not bothering to try to make piece with these clearly aggressive creatures, who for simplicity I’ll just refer to as goblins, and quickly starts to hack at them with my new, very, very impressive knife, as it managed to slice cleanly through one of the goblins, neck, kill it instantly, not waiting for a response from the other I used monarchs reach on the two closest to me who still seemed to be in shock, and dove towards the fourth slicking its throat as well
System>
{Successfully gathered compatib. . . .
{Attempting to raise the soul in. . . .
[Failed]
Ignoring the familiar series of prompted which repeated themselves a few times confirming the dead goblins, I retracted the tentacles, which almost seemed to protest as they were pulled away without being able to extract anything, but right now I couldn’t bother with milking a few gp from the corpses and had to rush back to stop what I feared happening.
Running back to the clearing where the men laid I saw the other four dots, rather goblins dancing around in a circle as they clubbed the men on the ground in the head producing a sickening series of crunches with each hit, laughing with a disgusting noise at every hit, my eyes narrowed as I saw the pool of blood forming around the heads of each of the thugs.
Its not that I had sympathy towards them, frankly my heart would rejoice if they encountered misfortunate, but as a human I felt the innate anger at seeing another one of my kind so bluntly defiled by something.
Increasing my speed I arrived at the four goblins in a flash, directly decapitating one, and kicking another in its chest so hard it seemed to crumble inwards dropping to the ground, the other two in front of me let out a shrill scream, but they could barely raise their weapons in time before twists my body I leaped at the one who before had be laughing as it crushed the the head of the leader, pouncing on him, I cut the throat of the only other remaining goblin, the blood splattering on the dress Mariam had gave me only angered me more.
Looking down at the horrid face of the goblin below me my anger boiled over as I directly drove the hilt of my blad into its face, intending to crush it slowly like it had done to the three thugs, surprisingly one hit was all it took, as I felt the skull of the goblin give way under the hilt, with a slight noise.
Followed by the cheery noise of the system message.
System>
{Successfully gathered compatib. . . .
Skipping past the first few notifications I walked over to the corpses of the three thugs looking at the system messaged which appeared in front of me with a frown.
System>
{Compatible energy source detected x3}
Quest Issued {Gather Compatible energy source} [No reward]
With a sigh I wondered if it’d really be okay, as I tried to avert my gaze from the blood covered men in front of me, I didn’t want to do it, but I couldn’t bring them back to the dead, at least their energy would be more useful to me then just lying here, and though I already had confirmed it with monarchs reach earlier, it still was a little shocking to learn that the system treated people the same way it did monsters.
Placing my hand on the three men I was met with the expected warm feeling of the energy rushing into me however when I waited for the ding of the system determining my reward, it came slower then usual and what did come was not what I expected.
System>
{Impurities found within collected energy additional time needed to determine reward}