RD 3 Ch 26 (Patreon)

Chapter 26

Antonio and the others from his guild were all sitting in front of me, their legs folded under them, heads bowed, and hands resting on their laps. More than a few were now wearing bruises and bloody lips. They’d managed to come out of the quelled forest fire and tried to stop me from murdering Antonio.

I stood nearby, leaning on a Blood Blade, staring at them. "Well, now that you've all stopped fighting, it's time to talk about the consequences," I said.

"But she took our fruits!" a ninja shouted.

Antonio was the one who spoke up. "You didn't have the strength to hold onto your fruits, and I didn't have the strength to get revenge. That's how this works," he scolded the ninja.

I couldn't help but smile at his words. "You see, he understands. As should you all. Now that you've lost so pitifully after attacking my Simone and Gloria, there will be a cost. That cost will be this." 

I waved my hand, and weak Blood Bolts shot out, hitting them one after the other. Antonio took the hit without so much as flinching, but the others all grunted from the ability striking them.

"What did you do?" the ninja asked.

Meanwhile, Antonio's face only grew paler. 

"Since you've done your best to harm them, I thought you should have more stake in their survival. If either of them suffers grievous harm, a hex will activate, weakening you and causing you to bleed out until you die." I smiled at all of them. "I am thoroughly proficient in this, and I would ask you to do your best not to tamper with those hexes. After all, I'm probably the best inscriptionist in the vault. I doubt even that senile old man can undo what I've done to you." 

Antonio hung his head. "Everyone, listen up. For the remainder of the vault, we will do our best to guard Simone and Gloria." 

One of the clan members stood up and shouted, "Boss, you can't just accept this." 

Antonio snapped at him. "Shut up. It's not like we have an option. That Bran isn't killing us right now is already more than most would do in this situation." 

I nodded along with him. "He's right. Most would kill you and be done with it. However, truth be told, I don't wish to cripple all of you. Killing all of you would only weaken my end goals. I have a desire to build a force. A force capable of fighting off, let's just say, a powerful enemy. And I think when all is said and done, you will have some value." 

"So we're going to be your slaves," another scoffed. 

I shook my head. "When we're done with the vault, I will remove the hexes. That is, assuming Gloria and Simone make it out alive." I stared at each of them.

"How can we possibly trust that he'll keep his word?" the ninja said looking around at the others for support as if they were going to rise up against me and win. 

“Shen.” Antonio snapped, "You don't have a choice. He's defeated me in a duel and he's asked for compensation. That compensation is that I protect his ladies to the best of my ability during this vault." Antonio sighed, "I am a man of my word. I will comply with my lost duel. Not to mention our group will be even safer joined with his. After all, he is considerably more powerful." Antonio's eyes shifted over to Merlin, "He has Merlin in his group even." 

For her part, Merlin held up her hands, "I'm not one of his women, if that's what you're thinking, Antonio. You have no requirement to protect me. I simply ran into him during this whole exercise and we've been working together." 

Antonio nodded his head, "Sure. Regardless, it doesn't matter. I lost. We lost. And we will now pay the price. I just ask, Bran, that you allow us to walk away with some benefit in this vault. We entered at quite the expense." 

I leaned on my sword, "Of course, Antonio. That’s fair. You will be compensated based on the effort I see you put forward. With you and your guild helping Simone and Gloria, there's a chance we'll be able to cover more ground. After all, those fruits are going to ripen here shortly. And we're going to have an opportunity to gather as many as we can before others get them." I grinned, "Now, please, if you'll give me a moment with Simone and Gloria, I will let you and your team regroup." 

I turned away from them, feeling confident that we had established a working model for the rest of the vault. It would be a shame to kill so many working hands.

Then I scooped Gloria and Simone up, crushing them to me again, reveling in the feeling of their warmth against my skin. I was changing. That much was clear. The pull I felt to these two women was undeniable.

"Now, I need you guys to explain what happened with Nyx." I put them down.

Simone bobbed her head, "We were in the trial. The three of us made it up up to the 70s on the steps. Most of them didn't make it past the 50s." She gestured towards that group, "And Gloria realized there was a difference of power. So she made everyone pay a toll to go through the mist." 

"Their fruit?" I asked, glancing at Gloria. 

She shrugged, "You said to take all of the benefits that we could." 

I squeezed her tighter to me, "No, you did fine. If I had any complaint, it was that it took too long for us to reunite and ensure your safety. But those fruits altogether are a decent chunk of stats. Even if we don't use them right now, their value, once we leave, is immeasurable." 

I looked into both of their eyes, making sure that they understood my hidden meaning. I was making sure they did not use the fruits now. Both of them nodded along. 

"Everything was fine and good. Nyx joined us," Simone continued the story, "And then all three of us walked through the mist together. And on the other side, there was just no Nyx." She sounded helpless, a little like she was blaming herself. 

I squeezed Simone to me, reassuringly, "It's not your fault. If I had to guess, she's likely undergoing her own special trial. Perhaps she has so much potential that she's getting special treatment." Once again, I was hiding my meaning under layers. Both of them nodded along. 

Given what Simone had said, I was now sure of what really happened, and I was relieved that Nyx was not dead.

Some demon had likely taken special interest in Nyx, and she was most likely being treated to rewards. Even if she was in another pocket of space in this vault, it was unlikely it would prevent my talismans from warning me if she had used any for emergencies. At least to me, that said she was likely okay or at least had everything under control. 

Though I couldn't help but worry about her, I knew there was nothing I could do at the moment. I put that to the side, knowing I needed to focus on what was in front of me. When I had an opportunity to get Nyx, I would damn well take it.

Moving back to the group, I started focusing on this trial. "All right, let me discuss a plan moving forward." I glanced at Antonio and Merlin, making sure to include both of them in this conversation. "When the eclipse is close, we can assume that the fruits will ripen, or we'll have the opportunity to ripen them. So far, our tests have yielded no response from plucking them and holding on to them. That has instead ruined them. Bleeding monsters on them was unsuccessful, nor was pouring my own blood."

Antonio gave me a shocked look. "You poured your own blood on them?"

I shrugged. There were more than a few demonic plants that grew well in bloody soil. With the monsters fighting over them, I wondered if blood was perhaps the way to ripen them. Either way, it didn't work. 

"We can make several assumptions." I said. “Fruits guarded by stronger monsters will be better.”

“Does that mean we should head back to the dinosaur?” Merlin asked.

“Preferably not right away.” I shook my head. “That thing was tough and though I could pull a few tricks out of my hat and kill it, I would only do that as a last resort.”

Both Antonio and Merlin nodded along with me. They understood.

When you had gone into enough instances and fought other powerful initiates, you developed several last ditch efforts. Last Stand was the easiest one I had available.

Antonio had Sacrificial Blade, which I’d seen in my past life. It was an incredibly powerful attack that would surpass their limit several times over, but cripple the user.

Merlin likely had something like that or two in her giant list of skills.

I had other last ditch efforts, however many of them would leave me weakened in the process. Initiated were not often given cheats. Everything was earned one way or another. It was what made Last Stand so impressive, being a reusable trump card and not doing lasting damage.

“We could eat enough of the weaker fruits to take on the dinosaur when we’re boosted. If these fruits are half as good as the ones from the stairs, we could have some serious improvements.” Antonio grinned.

“I don’t like the fruits.” I said, shooting him down. “They are almost too good to be true. My thoughts were to bring what I could out of the vault and test them before consuming them.”

Merlin hummed and nodded with me. “I had similar thoughts, however Antonio makes a point. If some of the others gather and eat dozens, it could put us in a very bad situation for future trials.”

“I’ve already eaten mine and nothing bad has happened.” Antonio insisted. “If you’d like, I’ll be your guinea pig for them.” He shrugged, obviously happy to get the stats.

“Nothing?” I asked, using Soul Gaze on him. His Spirit was 1739, but when I pushed my ability, that number shifted to 1217. Thirty percent was a huge debuff. “Hmm. Try more. Gloria, give him two.”

The mafia princess did a double take and scowled as she pulled two plus five fruits from her spatial ring before tossing them to Antonio. “Enjoy.” She said, but clearly didn’t mean the words.

Antonio bit into the fruits, juice running down his mouth as he quickly devoured both of them. He wasn’t polite about it at all.

The whole time I kept an eye on his Spirit. It went down another twenty points, which in the grand scheme of his stats wasn’t terrible.

“How’d the test go?” Antonio asked.

“Nothing.” I said. “I figured there would be a toxicity point or something. You can have too much of a good thing.” I deadpanned.

The duelist’s face went pale. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Don’t worry. If something goes wrong I can assist.” Merlin reassured him. “However, I think Bran is correct and we should do several tests before consuming fruits carelessly. Would any of your group like to help test at a lower overall stat level?”

All of their hands shot up.

“Pick one.” I told Antonio.

He pointed at the ninja, Shen. “She can test the fruits.”

“Good. Give her two and we’ll see what it does for now.” I told Gloria, who once again appeared to be in pain giving up the fruits.

Shen ate the fruit and her spirit dropped by thirty percent with the first and then another ten flat stat points with the second.

I nodded. “We’ll have to keep testing. Please don’t consume fruits for now.”

Merlin narrowed her eyes at me but didn’t say anything. It seemed that she was keen enough to pick up that something was wrong. “Let’s continue to map out the area, defeat beasts and identify fruits. Keeping a record of their names as well as numbers might help us prioritize once we are able to harvest the fruit. We should move back towards the ‘harder’ region as we go.”

“Sounds like a plan. We can camp out next to some fruits to monitor them more closely.” I clapped my hands together and looked at the group assembled before me. “Merlin, can you help the group move quicker?”

“The more people I bring, the tougher it is on me.” Merlin told me.

I nodded, of course that ability had to have a few flaws. “Great, take Antonio’s people with you and we’ll catch up.” I scooped up Gloria and Simone before throwing myself forward.

“Why did you spare him?” Gloria asked as soon as we were away from the others.

“He wasn’t so bad.” I shrugged. “Most of the Duelists I’ve known were rather rigid on rules. You took the fruits from his people, which was fair. He then fought you for their honor and because he was stronger. Also fair.”

“But then you came along and could have crushed him.” Gloria shot back quickly.

“He’s more useful as a tool than a corpse. If nothing else, those are more hands for harvesting fruit for us to eat later.” I grinned.

She smirked back. “You aren’t mad I took their fruits?”

“He’s not.” Simone said. “Well, he might pretend to be and ‘punish’ you. But I doubt you’d consider it a punishment when he’s done.”

“These fruits will be very valuable when we leave the vault and I have a little time to study them.” I looked her in the eyes, letting her know that we would deal with the consequences of the fruits and get their benefits, but not now. “Though, Merlin’s point about others using the fruits to become stronger than me is at least partially concerning. We still have to see if there are any downsides and if I can handle them.”

Both ladies had hard eyes as they nodded, understanding my words.