Wandering Warrior: Judge - Chapter 25 (Patreon)

Chapter 25

Healing Cross didn’t take long, and then the two of us picked through the bodies of the dead bandits.  The entire time I was kicking myself for missing out on the opportunity to use the monster core experiment on an elder vampire.  It had been the perfect chance to see what it was capable of, but I had completely forgotten about the stupid thing.

“I think that’s it.”  Cross dropped a heavy sack down between the two of us, kicking it open so I could see what was inside.  “There wasn’t much besides a few coins and some weapons.  Most of their armor wasn’t worth the time it takes to get it off of them.  All told, it’s probably worth five or six gold.”

“You can keep all of it.  Call it thanks for taking that hit for me.”  I didn’t miss the grimace that crossed his face.  “What?  Were you expecting more or something?  Good job killing all those scrubs, mister professional ranger-killer-man with a jawline sharp enough to cut glass, and thanks for watching my back while I killed the most dangerous monster I’ve ever seen on this gods-forsaken planet.”

“What’s a scrub?”  Cross cocked an eyebrow and I really wanted to punch him in the face for some strange reason.  Either his face was more punchable after I healed him, or I was getting tired.

“A scrub is… you know what?  It doesn’t matter.  Pick up your sack of goodies and let’s go.  I need to wash myself after dealing with that vampire.  Just being close to it made me feel dirty.”  I tracked down my own pack and made sure all the straps were still in place.

“If your life is only worth five or six gold coins, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you call this good enough.”  Cross grabbed the bag and slung it over his shoulder.  “We should hurry if we want to catch up with the others.”  The sky beginning to lighten meant sunrise was coming up soon.

I pulled my straw hat out of my pack and plopped it back on my head.  It was a little squished from being stored for so long, and it didn’t match my current woodland-themed clothing, but I was tired enough that my eyes felt scratchy and I didn’t want the sun in my eyes.  “Fine with me.  I’ll let you set the pace.”

Cross took off, weighed down with his normal stuff and the bag of loot.  I expected him to tire quickly, but the stony warrior kept it up the whole way back to the split in the path.  He paused to rearrange the bag before hefting it again.  “Their tracks are fresh.  We should be catching up to them soon.”

I looked at the ground, easily picking out the tracks of our group.  The edges of their footprints were sharp, meaning Cross was right.  “They should have made much better time.  Something must’ve happened.”  I set the pace this time, and Cross could barely keep up.  As we ran, I kept a close eye on the trail.  The occasional splatter of blood made me even more worried.  It was probably from a wound that opened on one of the former prisoners, but I couldn’t keep dark thoughts out of my head.  Even though I hadn’t known Jess or the Wardens long, I was already growing attached.  And I hated myself for it.

Every time I made the same mistakes.  A year was plenty of time to make friends.  Enough time for someone to sneak their way deep into your heart and rip it to pieces when they were stripped from your life in an instant.

Well, that was enough of that.  I wasn’t some angsty teenager.  I acted like a real adult and put all my feelings in a box before shoving them deep inside and ignoring them.  There now, much better.

“I think that’s them.”  Cross was half a pace behind me, trying extra hard not to show how winded he was getting.  I looked up and saw what he was talking about, and it most definitely wasn’t our group.

“No, it’s another cluster of those roaming zombies.  Where are all of them coming from?”  I looked over to Cross who only shrugged at me.  This time, I didn’t forget about the monster core and pulled it out and double-checked to make sure the runes were still correct.  “Wait here, I want to test something.”

I was forced to stay on the path to approach them, considering how dense the undergrowth was on either side in this area.  It made sense why they kept showing up on the trail.  They must walk through the forest until they hit an easier way to move around and just follow it.

At least, that’s what I figured.  Every world had minor differences in the levels of intelligence of their undead.  World eleven flashed through my memories.  Those undead had been almost as smart as they were while alive.  The fact their intelligence meant they didn’t form hordes was the only reason there were still living people on that whole planet.

Shaking my head clear of the fog of the past, I readied the cloth-wrapped orb.  The group was walking away from me, so I was able to sneak close enough to lob it into the middle of their cluster before they noticed me.

The bit of mana I pushed into it as the makeshift device left my hand activated less than a second after it hit the dirt.  The area immediately surrounding the core erupted into a hazy fog thick enough that I couldn’t see what was happening to the zombies inside.  Only the few stragglers closest to me weren’t engulfed, but their reaction was enough to tell me I was glad not to be inside the heavy mist.  They dropped to the ground, groveling as if the most powerful undead in existence was pressuring them to their knees with its aura.  Standing outside the mist, the only thing I could feel was a curtain of dense mana.  I probably had to be undead to feel its full effect.

A popping sound was the only warning I had before the mist vanished in a blink, like it was never there.  The runes most likely overloaded the fabric, and it failed.  The undead that had been inside the mist were outright flattened, meaning the pressure exuded had been real.  Or, at least real to the undead.  I definitely didn’t want to test it to find out, given the burst bodies of the undead.

Unfortunately for me, squished zombies weren’t dead zombies.  Their rotting corpses started clambering back to their feet, so I snapped the blade on my yari spear in place and waded into their midst before they could recover.

Going through them was much easier when they were mostly still on their hands and knees.  The spear-staff gave me the range to keep out of easy reach and all of them were permanently dead in less than two minutes.  I bent over and picked up my homemade rune device and the fabric crumbled off of the core into dust.  I inspected it to see if there were any changes.

Item: Lesser Monster Core

Type: Undead/Darkness Aspect

Grade: 1/10

Description: A core of condensed mana used to empower or control rare subspecies of undead.  Can be used to empower enchantments, or absorbed to boost mana capacity.  Undead aspect makes this unsuitable for consumption by the living.

**Warning**

This is an Object of Power not native to this plane of reality.  Handle with care.

The grade had dropped from a two to a one, meaning I had degraded it somehow with my experiment.  It felt cold, as if I was holding a piece of ice.  I shrugged and put it in the same pocket that held my gemstones.  Maybe I could find some more with a better charge, and sell this one.  The core swirled in glittering colors of purple so dark it looked black, and I had no doubt it would make me a lot of money at any jeweler's shop.

“I’ve never seen a spell like that one before.”  Cross walked up behind me, looking fully recovered from our run earlier.  “What’s it called?”

“Not sure yet.”  I shrugged and started walking.  “I thought about naming it ‘mind your own business’, but that doesn’t have the same punchiness as ‘ask me about it again and I’ll use it on you’.  Both of those are pretty long-winded for such a simple spell, though.  I’ll think of something else.”

Cross huffed at me before quickly falling in step.  “You don’t have to be such a jerk all the time.  I was just asking a question.”

“You telling me not to be a jerk?  That’s hilarious.”  I gave him a smile to take the sting out of my words.  “I’m tired, and the day’s just starting.  All these ambushes and running from one fight to another is starting to wear me down.  Once we get to Greendown, I want to spend a couple of days at a nice inn doing nothing.”

“Did you forget that you’re a criminal?  You won’t be resting at an inn.  You’re going to be in prison.”  Cross pointed a thumb back at the heap of dead zombies.  “Even if the Wardens don’t find you, the Guilds most certainly will.  You’ve cost them a fortune by now.”

I snorted in disbelief.  “Do you really think I’m worried about the Guilds?  Besides, they are the ones who’ve allowed this situation to fester, so any blame rests on their own heads.  They should be paying me a fortune for cleaning up their mistakes, not chasing me down for doing the jobs they can’t be bothered to do.”

Cross just shook his head at me.  “You’ll see.  You think you know how things work around here, but you have no idea.  I give it three days from the moment you walk into Greendown before you’re in jail.”

“So, what you’re saying is, conclude my business and get out of Greendown within two days?  I think I can do that.”  I laughed while he spluttered.

“I thought for sure you were going to stay there for a while, clean up the city and judge people by cutting off random body parts.”  Cross waved his stump at me.  “You know, you’re ‘mission from the gods’ and all that other crazy stuff you go on about.”

“Don’t you worry.  I’ll tackle the Guilds at some point, but first I need to take care of the exterior threats.  No sense tearing down walls when you might need them for protection.”  I squinted against the harsh morning sun that somehow made its way through my straw hat.  “Whoever the Destitute is, I see them as a much bigger threat to the common people.  There isn’t any sense in making a better government for the people if all the people have been eaten.”

Cross frowned in thought.  “I guess that makes sense, even if you are an idiot for thinking you even have a chance of winning against a bunch of world-spanning organizations.”

“We’ll just have to see, won’t we?”  I sped up once more, increasing the gap between us.  I wasn’t interested in convincing Cross.  I already had a plan coming together in the back of my head on how to handle several of the Guilds at once, but I would have to get a look at their ‘communing with the gods’ book before I could finalize things.

About the time I felt like calling another break, we finally caught sight of the others.  They were strung out in a line barely visible through the trees, hurrying as quickly as they could manage as another cluster of zombies shambled after them.  I let loose a long-suffering sigh and looked over at Cross.

“Come on.  Let’s go save them.  We wouldn’t want all our hard work to count for nothing.”  I shook my head as a flood of memories flashed through my mind, all examples of my past failures.  This wasn’t those worlds, and I had learned from my mistakes.  A jaw-cracking yawn snuck up on me before I could fight it off.  “And then, we take a nap.”