Chapter 148: Ingestion

“Cheers!”

Bon clinked his chipped mug against mine and took a gulp, as did I. The taste was pretty interesting, one I hadn’t had before. I’d been Unclassed last time I had alcohol, and the alcohol for the Classed and Unclassed was made very differently.

Since increasing your Endurance and your Health made you more resistant to harm, it also meant that alcohol—which was technically a poison—had a reduced effect on you as you increased in Level. So the “beer” we were drinking was really closer to straight liquor in alcohol content, having been created by mixing regular beer with pure distilled alcohol.

So, obviously, it tasted quite different. It actually tasted a lot weaker than I’d have thought it’d be, but I supposed my taste had probably been adjusted too from the extra Endurance, or maybe I’d just forgotten what it actually tasted like to begin with.

Erani took a sip of her own drink, as did the rest of the room—aside from Ainash, who hadn’t been offered one to begin with. Part of me considered letting her take a sip out of my cup just so she could know what I tasted like, but I also felt like giving alcohol to a two-year-old would be pretty irresponsible, so I decided against it.

“Been a while since we’ve had any reason to break out the strong stuff,” Bon said. “Don’t often get shipments of it here. Normally just the flamin’ standard swill for Unclassed weaklings, doesn’t even do anything unless you have a barrel of it.”

“I’d imagine it wouldn’t do anything at all, no matter how much you have,” I remarked. “If you’re all high-Level Melee-Types, you probably have some pretty significant Endurance values.”

Jannin just snorted at my comment and took another sip, leaning back and making himself comfortable in his chair. Poppins, who’d been pretty much completely silent ever since the whole prostitute debacle, had a mug, but I was pretty sure it was full of water. Probably just didn’t like to drink.

As time went on, we went through mug after mug, with me admittedly having more than I should have, though I told myself it was just because my Endurance was suppressing the alcohol and so I needed more of it to feel a buzz. Erani was chugging them down pretty quickly, too.

“Father, your thoughts are funny when like this,” Ainash messaged to me.

“I’m fine…just…need to get a break from all this bullshit…fuckin’ Demons,” I said back.

Bon and Jannin both slammed down mug after mug alongside us, being the only two that were really talkative during the night. I may have been a bit tipsy, but I still recognized that I needed to watch my mouth. And I didn’t really trust myself to watch it correctly in my current state, so I just settled with not talking at all if I could help it. Erani was also silent, seeming to not even be paying attention to the conversation. She’d sat on the floor in a corner at some point, leaning up against the walls and staring up at the roof as she nursed her drinks.

“I just don’t see why the flamin’ ‘Emperor’ Etrin has gotta tell us all what to do!” Jannin was saying. He apparently had a revolutionary streak in him that came out with the help of the booze. “Lyra was just as good—”

“—and pretty,” Bon interjected, eyes only half-open.

“—so we don’t need some new flamin’ guy comin’ in and changing everything up. Needs to shut his flamin’ mousehole for once and maybe let the people tell him what we want. I know everyone agrees with us, too! Just too scared of that flamin’ tyrant to say anything.”

I nodded along to their rants, trying to follow all the names and places that I was sure they’d mentioned before, but now escaped me in what they all referred to.

“Um, father?” Ainash sent me another message. She was standing over by the window, glancing between me and Erani. “Think mother is not happy.”

I blinked. “...Hm?”

“Feel sadness coming from her. But when try to talk, thoughts are weird like yours. Can you talk to mother?”

I looked over and saw her, still staring off into a random point on the ceiling. Bon and Jannin were arguing about some random thing I had no idea about, so I silently stood and made my way over to her, only barely stumbling as I got up. I tried to mentally force myself into sobriety through sheer force of will, and it sort of felt like it worked, though not by much.

I plopped myself down next to her, and heard a few empty mugs scatter that’d been lying next to her across the floor. How many had she had?

“Hey,” I said.

She looked up at me. Had she been crying? “Hi.”

“How are you? Ainash said you were…all fucked up or something.”

“‘Course I’m fucked up,” she slurred. “How could I not be?”

“I…listen, I’m fucking drunk, so sorry if I say dumb shit. But I think you’re fine. More than fine. You’re great.”

“No, I’m not,” she took a breath and blinked slowly. “My life is gone. Everything I had was completely destroyed.”

“That’s not true,” I said, trying my best to think of something to say. “You still have—”

“Nothing! I’ve got nothing. My family’s fucking dead, and I can’t go home, and now I don’t even have a fucking arm.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “It’s all gone.”

I wrapped my own arm around her and pulled her into a sideways embrace, which she fell into without a word. Fuck, I was way too drunk to think of something that could cheer her up. “I’m sorry.”

Erani just sobbed to herself with her head leaning on my shoulder. Bon and Jannin hadn’t even noticed I was gone, it seemed—they’d just been keeping pace with me with their drinking, but they seemed absolutely hammered.

“I…Listen, you don’t have n…nothing—er, you have something,” I stuttered out. “You…I’m sorry your old life is gone. But you have something new, now. Ainash is a fucking…great daughter. I know she loves you. And I do too. We both really…really care about you. And we can make a big, new, way better life here.”

She sniffled. “It won’t be way better. The Demons exist. They’ll make it awful.”

“Demons suck ass,” I spat. “Fuck ‘em. We’ll just fucking kill the Demons and then boom. New, better life. Promise, I won’t fucking rest until those stupid fuckin’ monsters are dead. And I’ll sell the dumb fuckers’ corpses and buy a sick-ass mansion for us to live in. It’ll be awesome.”

“Who’ll buy the corpses?” Erani laughed. “Nobody’s going to want them.”

“Nah, they’ll be trophies or something. And the Demons’ll be extinct, remember? So their corpses’ll be, like, a rare thing. Or something. I’ll find some way. But I’m telling you. It’s gonna be awesome. We can totally make our lives awesome.”

“That sounds so dumb when you say it like that,” she laughed again and looked up at me, head lying on my chest as I leaned against the stone wall. “You’re totally so drunk.”

“You are too, dummy,” I smiled. “You look, like, super hot though anyway. It’s really cool how you can do that. Just look great all the time.”

“You’re so dumb,” she chuckled and closed her eyes.

With the droning sound of Bon and Jannin arguing back and forth about complete nonsense, and the alcohol coursing through my veins, I found it harder and harder to stay awake every second that passed. And within a few moments, I drifted off.

I awoke to the thud of something hitting the floor. Opening my eyes, I saw Jannin climbing back up to his feet, Bon looking drunkenly furious and standing over him.

“You flamin’ asshole!” he shouted. “Why in hell’s flames wouldn’t you tell me that there was a flamin’ hooker comin’ by?!”

Poppins, still obviously sober, stepped between them. “S-sorry, Bon, we didn’t realize—”

“Didn’t realize that I’m flamin’ lonely as flames?! Shut your mousehole, man! I know you could tell!”

Looking at the fact that two more barrels of beer had been pulled out…these guys had probably had a lot more to drink. Not that I felt much better than I’d felt when I fell asleep. I maybe had slightly more of my wits to me, but my vision was still spinning.

Looking down, Erani was still lying on my chest, asleep. I gently lifted her up and got out from under her, lying her back down on the floor. Then I stood up, using the wall to steady myself with my impaired mind and still-broken leg.

“Hey, guys, quiet down. Don’t fuckin’ fight. She’s asleep,” I gestured to Erani, who stirred slightly. “Don’t fuckin’ wake us up.”

“Ugh,” Bon took a step toward me. “You Koinkarians and your flamin’ slang. Learn the flamin’ language if you wanna come over here. Least you can do.”

I groaned. My head didn’t really feel good, though whether that was from the alcohol or from the fact I’d been leaned up against a stone wall in an awkward position for hours, I didn’t know. “Just try to quiet down, man. The fuck’s even going on between you two, anyway?”

Jannin, now on his feet again, brushed himself off. “Flamin’ idiot’s mad we didn’t tell him about the hooker that came by, even though we know he would’ve just called it in and gotten us in trouble. Probably would've gotten the poor girl jailed, too.”

“I flamin’ wouldn’t have done that, dumbass!” Bon yelled back at him. “I just wanted to flamin’—I mean, hell, I would’ve even settled for a nice conversation. You don’t have to assume I’m this flamin’ jarhead by-the-books leader all the time. I can be your friend, man.”

“You aren’t, though!” Jannin said. “You always go and tell flamin’ command every, single, flamin’, thing! Why would I trust you with that?!”

“I just said! You’re my friend! Or at least I thought.”

“No, man, you obviously don’t think so. Otherwise you wouldn’t’ve gotten me in trouble for taking one too many hours on my break, or for eating just a bit more than my rations because I was sick!”

“I have to get you in trouble for that, or else you won’t do your flamin’ job right, ever!” Bon huffed out a sigh. “Listen, I haven’t flamin’ seen a woman in ages. Just thought you’d get it.”

Jannin snorted. “I mean, you just saw a woman today. Didn’t act like it was nothin’ special. Obviously it’s not that important to you.”

Bon looked over at Erani, still asleep on the floor, and rolled his eyes. “She’s a flamin’ cripple. Got no arm. Barely even counts as a woman. I mean, what, you really think I’d count someone who doesn’t even have all their—”

You have struck Level 9 Swordsman for 39 damage using Fist.

You have irritated an open wound. 32 damage.

Your Health is 273.

Bon flew across the room, landing face down on the floor from the force of my strike. I stumbled forward, my legs barely able to support my weight, and everyone in the room yelled out in surprise.

My arm ached, and I realized I’d accidentally punched with my dominant hand—the broken one. But I ignored the pain with the help of the booze and stumbled forward.

You have cursed Level 9 Swordsman with Crippling Chill. For the next 15 seconds, he loses 7.76 Health and 6.21 Stamina each second, and his Dexterity score is lowered by 15.5.

56.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 1289.

In what was effectively pure instinct, I sluggishly went through the typical list of curses to apply to my opponent in an attempt to debuff him into oblivion. However, I only actually got through a single one—Crippling Chill—before I collapsed down on top of Bon, partly because my broken leg gave out, and partly because I wanted to hit him again.

“Arlan!” I could hear Index shout at me, its words garbled in my ear from the intoxication.

Before I could mentally respond, I felt hands dragging me away. Looking up, I saw it was Poppins. “H-hey, leave him—”

“Fuck off!” I fought for custody of my arm with Poppins, desperately trying to wrench it free so I could land another hit on the seemingly-unconscious Bon. “He fuckin’ deserves it.”

“Father!” Ainash messaged me frantically, “should I kill them all?”

I looked back and saw her with her eyes aflame, whip in hand and ready to split people in half. That made me stop.

And it also made me look back at my damage notification. Level...9?! What the fuck?! This guy said he was high-Level! Multiple times, he said they were all high-Level. Why the fuck was he so weak? I thought he could take a couple punches, but…

“Arlan.” Index said again.

I also realized I’d had Noxious Grasp active this whole time, apparently having activated it at some point of my drunken fight. Hurriedly, I shut it off and let myself be dragged off of Bon’s still-unmoving body.

You have struck Level 9 Swordsman for 77 damage and drained 77 Stamina over the course of 3.7 seconds using Noxious Grasp.

19.7 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 616.

I blinked over and over, my ears feeling like they were still ringing from my quickly-fading anger.

“Father?” Ainash said.

“N, no,” I messaged back. “They’re okay. Don’t…”

Fuck. Bon still wasn’t moving. Poppins crouched down by his side, looking up at me. “What did you do to him?!”

“I…”

Jannin stumbled over, too, clumsily placing his hands on Bon’s neck. He shifted around for a moment before finding the artery. “He’s alive, at least.”

I swallowed, finding my balance with my hand gripping the table behind me. My vision swam. “Use…Jannin, use your healing thing. He’s cursed. Losing Health every second. Might not…might not survive, even if he’s alive now.”

“Flames…” Jannin hurriedly closed his eyes and began muttering under his breath while Poppins stood and placed his hand on his sword, facing me.

“What were you thinking?!” He asked angrily. “You’re trying to flamin’ kill Bon over some petty insult?! I know what he said was mean, but he’s drunk! He always gets like this.”

Fuck. Was he going to die?

“Why did you guys say you’re high-Level?” I asked. “That’s…why lie? I thought he could take it.”

“We were scared!” Poppins said, seeming incredulous that I even asked such a question. “Some dude in flamin’ black spooky armor, looking like a Demon, with a weird monster we’ve never seen before? ‘Course we were gonna bluff!”

A light flashed from behind him, and I saw Jannin activating his healing Spell on Bon. He reached down to check his vitals once again after, but before he could, Bon groaned and blinked, slowly sitting himself up.

“Oh thank the gods,” Poppins rushed back over to him, helping him up.

“I…sorry,” was all I could think to say.

“Father, I do not think you did anything wrong!” Ainash said, walking over to me. “Do not feel bad. Human was acting like bad guy! If made you mad, then deserve to die.”

“D-don’t kill them.”

Bon groaned again and sat up, rubbing his eyes and drunkenly muttering, “I…I don’t…what’s…”

“Arlan!” Index said, even more sternly this time.

W-what? I managed to think. Somehow, forming coherent thoughts to communicate with it felt even more difficult than speaking aloud. I…I know…I was, fucking, uh, stupid. Shouldn’t’ve…uh…

“Arlan. You hit him with your broken arm, meaning he dealt damage to you.”

H…huh? Yeah…that was dumb. My…my mistake.

“No. When someone deals damage to you, they get a notification saying how much they dealt, and who they dealt it to. You’re a Human, which means it doesn’t just say your species and Level, it says your Class.

I…wait…

“Arlan, Bon just got a notification saying he dealt damage to a Level 20 Minute Mage.”