Chapter 117: Interviewing

Erani, Ainash, and I all stood around Ripley, who was sitting disarmed on the ground.

She’d said she was friendly to our cause in some form, but we still took the basic precautions, taking her combat gear, searching her for any Enchanted items, searching the surrounding area to ensure it wasn’t a trap, and so on. Ripley stayed silent throughout the whole endeavor, simply allowing us to do what we needed without complaint.

While we did this, Astintash came up to speak to us.

“I am gracious for your help,” it had said, “and I am glad we reached an agreement. Now that the enemy is dispatched, I will take my leave.”

And with that, it just flew off. Really, part of me was expecting something more. But I supposed that, to a Dragon, killing massive swaths of life and taking part in gigantic battles was just like any other day. The only strange part of this whole situation to Astintash, I suspected, was the fact that it ended up forming a temporary alliance with a couple of Humans.

And it didn’t seem to want to keep that alliance, considering how soon it left. We held up our end of the bargain, and it held up its. Nothing more to it.

After that, we took Ripley away from the battlefield. Even though we didn’t find any soldiers tailing us or hiding in the shadows, we couldn’t be certain there wasn’t anyone around, so going to some other remote place would probably be a good idea.

Plus, even if there really wasn’t anyone around, who was to say they weren’t getting reinforcements as we spoke to come back and attack us? Sure, Astintash would probably be keeping an eye on the area to ensure nobody came back—and the Demons most likely knew that—but we couldn’t say for certain.

But really, I just wanted to get away from all the corpses. I’d become familiar with death ever since I’d gotten the Minute Mage Class—much more intimately so than I’d have liked—but that didn’t mean I liked it. Astintash wasn’t exactly clean with its crushing of heads and burning of the masses, and even if I was somewhat used to the sight, I didn’t feel like I could ever get used to the smell.

So we continued further into the mountain valley with Ripley in tow as our prisoner.

It took about an hour before we felt comfortable enough to sit down again—partially because it took about an hour for everyone to get their Mana back and for me to get back enough Stamina for another activation of Regenerate—but once we decided to rest, it took all my strength not to just collapse into the ground.

The past day had been much, much longer than it had any right to be. Both mentally and in a literal sense. I’d used Time Loop twice, each time going back about four hours. That meant the day had lasted around thirty-two hours. And I’d spent at least half of that time actively dealing with life-or-death scenarios. I wanted nothing more than to just fall asleep—preferably for a week.

But we still had a prisoner with us, so I couldn’t do that just yet. Hopefully Ripley wouldn’t cause us any problems. She’d been too low on Stamina for the past while to try and fight back, but taking some time for us to regenerate ourselves also meant she got to as well, and it was possible that she might do something like activating Berserk to try and fight us in a last-ditch effort to escape. So we needed to stay on guard.

Ainash just wanted to kill her—not that I was particularly surprised by that—but she agreed not to. Definitely a step up from her prisoner-killing exploits of the past, though I wasn’t sure if praising her for just wanting to kill someone was really all that much better than going ahead and doing it. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a bit proud of her progress.

While we walked, I’d also been finishing up the practice for all of my Spells. I’d Leveled up to 18 in the previous fight, earning me some Stat Points, a Spell Choice—which I still needed to go through, once we got some time—and a new Rank for my Soft Cap. That Rank was 10, meaning I could get all of my Spells up to the first Upgrade point without having to deal with the Soft Cap, now.

Though I wouldn’t actually be able to Upgrade them without Spell Crystals, which I had a distinct lack of, currently. Still, I went through and at least got them all to the Spell XP threshold, if just for the sake of making my Status look nice and clean.

Threshold reached. Ray of Frost XP has reached 355.

Consume a Cold Spell Crystal or a Curse Spell Crystal to increase Ray of Frost Rank to 10.

So I got quite a few of these notifications for all of my Spells, each informing me of the Spell Crystals I’d need. Once I got all of them maxed out, I just went back to practicing Noxious Grasp.

Once we were ready, we sat Ripley up against a rock and tied her hands behind her back with part of Ainash’s whip—she was sure to turn off the flaming aspect of it before we did that—and then we got to the actual questioning part of our encounter.

“So, what is your exact relationship with the Demons?” I started our interview out with. We’d been secretly communicating through Ainash and trying to figure out how we’d conduct our interrogation, and ended up deciding on a basic line of questioning.

Ripley gazed up at me. She seemed to have a mix of respect and anger in her eyes, though I wasn’t sure how the two coexisted when directed at the same person. Shaking her head, she grunted. “You had to start off with the hardest question, huh?”

“Just try your best to explain.”

“Well the problem is that I barely know, myself.” She sighed. “As a kingdom, it seems like we’re subservient to them, at this point. The king has ordered a ceasefire on all fighting against the Demons. Obviously some people refused to stop, but they were… dealt with. Swiftly.”

“What about you, personally?”

“I’m their enemy. And if that makes me an enemy of the kingdom too, so be it. I’m tired of fighting for their side. What happened here,” she gestured around, “sacrificing all of those soldiers’ lives against the Dragon, it’s sick. They knew it would happen. Hells, we were briefed on it. They called us ‘VIPs,’ the ones that were supposed to survive. They knew that Dragon would attack, and so they told the soldiers to fight back, no matter what. Deserting meant torture, then death.”

I nodded. “So the VIPs…”

“We were given special rings to get teleported out once things got too dangerous. Everyone else was essentially supposed to distract the Dragon while we went and killed you. They wanted to get you alone. And apparently the kingdom felt like it was worth sacrificing the lives of a thousand good men and women to a gods-damned Dragon for that cause.”

“And you disagreed?”

“‘Course I did. Couldn’t really do much about it, though. I wasn’t planning on doing anything, either. But when I was under Berserk, I wasn’t really thinking straight. Made the decision there and then to just fuck ‘em and get away.”

“So you don’t plan on going back, then?”

“Hells no. If they want to kill you, that’s their business. And if you want to survive, that’s yours. But I won’t be dying for either of those causes. They don’t have anything to do with me.”

“Don’t you want to help us take down the Demons, then? If we worked together—”

“I’m just going to stop you there. This is your fight. I don’t want to hurt you, and I sure as hells want to see those Demons sent back to where they came from, but… I don’t think you understand what you’re up against.”

“Why don’t you try enlightening us, then?”

She just shook her head. “It’s hopeless to try and take them down. They made sure to beat that into me. And one day, it’ll be beaten into you, too. I’m not going back to the kingdom, and that includes fighting against them, as well as with them.”

“So then you’ll be traveling to the Barinruth Empire with us, then?”

She laughed. “As far as I know, I’m still your prisoner. I assume that we’re operating under ‘what you say goes,’ right? In that case, I don’t think I have a choice.”

I pursed my lips. “Guess so. But I was hoping to establish a bit more of a friendly relationship, if you’re not going to be working against us.”

“If it was up to me, I’d get the hells away from you as fast as I could. You’re a magnet for danger. The Demons may kill me on sight now that I’ve deserted, but they’ll be actively looking for you. And I don’t wanna be near when they see you.”

I grunted. “That’s fine, I guess.”

“Anyway, something’s wrong with Koinkar. The kingdom, and the king himself. We’re supposedly ‘working together’ with the Demons, but anyone around can tell that’s bullshit. Koinkar is…different. He used to at least try to fight back against what they said. Now he willingly goes along with their plans without a word against. Hells, he almost seems enthusiastic about following along. Not like someone working under threat of being invaded if he doesn’t do what they say.”

“When did this change occur?” I furrowed my brows. Had something happened to the king? I wouldn't be surprised, really.

“I was… imprisoned. For some time. The day I went in, he was fine. Day I came out, he’d changed.”

I nodded. “No idea how that happened, I assume?”

“Nah. But whatever those damned Demons did, they’ve corrupted this entire kingdom, top to bottom. No way I could’ve done what they said for long.”

“What about the other royal guard that was with you? Asmo? She seems to be just fine going along with the Demons.”

Ripley shook her head, smiling in a strangely fond way, considering the subject matter. “That girl’s a lost cause. She wants to get to the top of whatever ladder’s in front of her. Right now, the ladder we’re climbing is the one where killing you is at the top. So she’s just working her way up. Money and power, that’s all she’s been after.”

“Do you think you could convince her to come over to our side? You seem to work well together.”

She laughed. “We do, but not in the way where I could change her mind on that. Hells, I’m willing to bet she’s out there forming a plan to get me back to her side right now. We’re good together, but we’re both too stubborn for something like that.”

I frowned. “You seem pretty…okay with that. Aren’t you two close? Wouldn’t you be upset that you’re fighting now?”

“Oh, we’ll find our way back to each other’s sides eventually. One of us will beat the other and then we’ll be working together again. When we were kids, I told her she’d become a royal guard with me, she said I’d become an adventurer with her. I won that fight. Now we’re just dancin’ the same dance once again.”

“Hm.” I’d gone off the basic script we’d established before, but I felt like it was necessary to figure Asmo out, since I’d most likely have to fight her again. Seemed like she and Ripley were eccentric, to say the least. Hopefully Ripley would win whatever fight they had going on, and Asmo would leave the Demons too, but it seemed like whether or not that happened wasn’t exactly up to me. “Why don’t you just tell me what the next plan is for the Demons?”

“I wasn’t so high up as to get info like that. You’d have to talk to one of their core strategists. The merchant, the old man…pretty much any of the other VIPs. I was considered one because of the numbers on my Status, more than anything else. So I was meat to be moved around and a Status sheet to fight for them, not the type of person to get valuable info.”

“Well, anything helps. Have any suspicions?”

“After this disaster, they might just let you leave. Their only hope to catch you before you get to Barinruth would be to set up another army of soldiers and mobilize them ASAP to come chase you through the canyon, but that Dragon friend of yours will probably stop them if they try it, so I doubt they’ll go for it.”

“So you think we’re safe, then?”

“Oh, definitely not safe. Whatever those Demons are planning… they’re in it for the long haul. If you don’t die today, they’ll kill you tomorrow. And if you don’t die tomorrow, they try again next week. And if you don’t die then, they’ll try next month, next year, next decade. They have control over King Koinkar, somehow, and they won’t be letting that go. I know that for sure. If you make it to Barinruth, then they’ll just change plans from hunting down a single person to waging war against the nation that houses you.”

I sighed. That was what I was afraid of. Still, it seemed like, if they did that, the conflict would necessarily slow down quite a bit. So I’d have some time to get my bearings, establish myself, stop living out of the woods, and maybe even warn the empire of the upcoming attack. “But they’ll let us get to Barinruth?”

“Don’t think they have a choice. At least, I can’t think of anything they could do to stop you. Not anything they’re willing to do, at least.”

“Alright.” I turned to Erani and asked Ainash to pass on a message. “Hey, I think I’m done asking her the main questions I had. You can talk to her now if you want—”

But I was interrupted by a screech coming from above us. I snapped my head up and saw a Green Drake soaring overhead between the chasm walls. It spat down a glob of acid right where we were, and we all scrambled to get out of the way.

Ainash, before I could even think to retaliate, leapt up and kicked off one of the stone walls next to us, jumping high up into the air, and slashing up with her whip to slice open the monster’s scaled belly.

It screeched again in pain and flew off.

I sighed. Drakes shouldn’t have been too much of a problem, but with my relatively low Health and Stamina, I didn’t want to take any more chances with these fights. One bad move could still end up with me dead, especially when I still didn’t have Time Loop for a few more hours.

I looked back down. “Anyway, Erani, you wanna ask—”

I blinked. Ripley was gone. Glancing around I suddenly saw her climbing up the mountain face with her muscly arms pulling her up and across faster than I could even run. She got up to the top and started sprinting off.

“I go catch her?” Ainash asked.

I sighed. Ripley was fleeing into the direction of the Barinruth Empire, not the Koinkar Kingdom. If she got away, it wasn’t like she’d be going back to the enemy. “Could you even catch up to her?”

“Maybe. I am very fast.”

“Yes, I’m sure you are,” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Erani, you think we should send Ainash to go get her?”

Erani pursed her lips. “Seems a bit needlessly dangerous. We got the information we wanted out of her. And she doesn’t seem hostile in the first place. We’d have to let her go eventually, so we may as well do it here. Sending Ainash out to find her, alone, would just be asking for trouble.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I guess. Don’t want to antagonize her.”

“Alright. Let’s keep going for a bit to get out of this dangerous area, and then let’s sit down and rest for a while. And keep an eye out for that Ripley woman. She didn’t seem dangerous, but who knows.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Hopefully we can find a place to rest soon. I need to regenerate some Health. And manage a Level–up.”

“Oh, you got one too?”

“Yep,” I nodded. “I’m getting a new Spell. What about you?”

“Well, with the help of the lovely Ainash,” Erani pulled her into a side-hug, making the child Draconiad look remarkably embarrassed, “I actually Leveled up twice!”

I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”

“Yep. Eleven percent XP from all of her kills really helps out.” Erani smiled at Ainash. “Good job with all the fighting! You did really well.”

We’d been getting into the habit of, whenever we spoke aloud to each other, also telepathically relaying the conversation to Ainash. This way, not only would we keep her in the loop of what was going on, but she could hopefully begin learning our spoken language, too. I mean, she was still a child, so it made sense that we should try to teach her some stuff.

So, after Erani complimented her fighting, Ainash smiled and hugged Erani back. I’d have said it was a remarkably heartwarming sight, if not for the fact that we were praising her for her killing abilities.

Then, Erani suddenly frowned.

“Oh,” she said. “Hey Arlan, you know how you mentioned the Bond with Ainash Ranking up before?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it just happened to me.”