Waking up felt terrible.
It was slow.
Like clawing my way out of a grave.
Before I even fully realized I was awake, the pain hit me. My whole body ached, and even the effort of moving felt too expensive. Just opening my eyes and looking around hurt, but it was necessary.
Hunter was sitting in front of me, staring daggers at the beast.
The monster itself had been restrained with several chains, each one bound around nearby trees. Falk noticed I was awake first, only sparing me a quick glance before going back to watching everything else. Then Hunter looked over.
"Check your whispers."
He sounded exhausted. His body looked mostly fine, but his clothes were burned, and so were Falk's feathers.
"I'm sorry..." I forced out.
"It is what it is." He looked back toward the beast. "Iggy... he was a good boy."
I could tell he wanted to say something else, something harsher maybe, but it did not matter. The pain he was going through was written all over his face.
I pulled up my whispers.
[2 hours ago]
[Sheral: We're coming to get your ass! Don't you dare die on us!]
[30 minutes ago]
[Sheral: Meet me at the church, idiot.]
"Thanks... for telling them I was alright."
"Yeah. Seemed like the right thing to do."
Silence settled over the woods.
What came next?
For both of us, that answer looked different, but the feeling was the same. For the first time, I had really been forced to face my own mortality, and Hunter had been reminded of it in the worst possible way.
The whole setup of this world suddenly felt like a trap.
Like we had been lured into a false sense of security by "mobs" that were never really meant to stay simple.
"I'm..." I paused as I forced myself to stand. "Going back to the city."
"Yeah, alright." He did not look at me, his gaze still fixed on the chained beast. "I'll stay here a while."
"...Mhm."
I started limping back.
By the second hour of walking, the limp had mostly faded as my body slowly healed. Whatever Hunter had shoved down my throat was probably some kind of slow healing potion, the only kind available to ordinary people right now.
Reaching the city gate felt like a relief.
Seeing Sheral sitting on the church steps lifted a weight I had not realized was still crushing me.
She spotted me, got up immediately, and crossed the distance fast enough that I barely had time to react before she was hugging me.
"You big fat idiot. How dare you."
"Just a few scrapes, I swear," I tried to joke, but tears were already starting to form.
"Yeah, right," she snapped. "You fucking scared us."
"I'm sorry. I should have gotten help..."
"Of course you should have!" she yelled, tears in her eyes now too. "What do you think we're here for? Both of you!"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay?"
"No, not okay! You can't die on me, okay?!"
"I won't," I said quickly. "I swear, okay? I swear it."
It took both of us a few minutes to calm down.
Eventually we ended up sitting side by side on the stone steps of the church.
"I didn't take you as the religious type," I said, breaking the silence.
"Well, I haven't been for years," she said. "But I don't know. I felt the call."
"The call?"
"If you get it, you'll get it. I won't be able to explain it."
"Alright then..."
She shrugged. "Plus, if push comes to shove, I get to help people again."
"That's true." I waited a moment before adding, "How's Jake doing?"
"Oh, he's having a blast. Him and the other paladins split their time between worship and combat, so they could be anywhere right now."
"Mmh. What level?"
"I'm not sure," she said, sounding a little irritated now.
"What's wrong?"
"Levels," she said. "More specifically, the fact that I'm behind."
"Well, you'll get there. You have to do all this extra stuff to get your class, so it's probably going to be strong."
"That's the hope, I guess. But whatever it is, I'll still be behind."
"Well, once I can afford Enchanting, I'll gear you up. Make the grind easy."
Sheral laughed a little. "That's very kind of you, Tero. Thanks."
Silence settled between us again.
This time it was peaceful.
"Well," I said after a while, "I'm going to turn in this quest."
"Alright. When am I going to see you again?"
"...I'll be around. No more hiding from y'all."
"I'll hold you to it."
She hugged me one more time, then stood up and went back inside.
I waited until she was out of sight before heading off toward the inn the Dusk Falls hunters called home.
It was one of the city's class houses, a place only certain class paths or organizations could enter. There were more than a few of them scattered around the city, each tied to some theme, profession, or style of advancement.
It took me a while to find this one.
Like the religion they were based around, the hunters seemed to prefer staying out of the way. Their house was tucked deep into the bad part of the city, where NPCs might curse you out just for bumping into them. The building stood out mostly because of the gray lumber it was made from, wood cut from the forests of Dusk Falls.
I had been a little curious about how I was supposed to turn in the quest.
That question answered itself the moment I knocked on the door.
[Quest Complete!]
[Tame the Haunted Beast: Tame Level 25 Dire Wolf (Elite)]
[Reward: 1125 XP]
[
[Stats][Magic][Inventory][Skills][Help]
Class: Adventurer 20
Strength: 10
Body: 8
Agility: 9
Dexterity: 6
Intelligence: 49+1
Willpower: 12
Charisma: 8
Stat points: 0
XP: 158/210
]
[Class Advancements
Mage
Spearman
Magic Spearman
Spacial Mage
Tacticion
Stratagist
Advisor
Guild Master
Leyline Strategist
]
[Leyline Strategist
A battlefield control mage who creates temporary mana lines to extend casting range, improve spell shaping, and coordinate wide-area effects.]
That was it.
That was the class I had been looking for, especially after what had happened.
I didn't want to be in the middle of fights anymore.
I wanted to be far from them.
I wanted to be somewhere else, helping from the side, controlling things without having to stand right in the jaws of death every time.
So I picked it.
The change was immediate.
[Leyline Strategist
A battlefield control mage who creates temporary mana lines to extend casting range, improve spell shaping, and coordinate wide-area effects.
Benefits:
+3 Intelligence per level
+1 Stat point per level
Your mana pool is now calculated as fifteen times your intelligence instead of five times
Your help menu on magic now provides information on the leyline theory of magic casting]
My mana pool jumped from 250 to 750 instantly.
The shift was so dramatic it nearly made my head spin.
Mages in general got much larger mana pools than normal classes, even the basic Mage path boosted the ratio to 10 mana per point of Intelligence. But ley lines were something special.
By extending mana through an area, ideally in an almost impossibly thin line, I could change the origin point of the spells I cast.
On its own, that was already incredible.
Combined with how fast mana could move, and the fact that I could eventually maintain multiple ley lines at once, it meant I could attack from several angles, strike weak points more reliably, and shape the battlefield without being anywhere near the center of it.
It was not as flashy as some grand, world-shaking spell.
But it would work just as well.
This was exactly what I needed after everything that had happened.
After feeling weak for so long.
After realizing that one bad fight was all it took for everything to nearly end.
For the first time in a while, I felt like I had the kind of power that could put me on par with someone like Hunter.
Then again, even he was still far from the strongest person on the layer.
My thoughts kept bouncing back and forth.
This, but that.
Good, but bad.
Relief, then dread.
I could not stay happy or miserable for more than a few seconds before another thought shoved me to the other side.
The whole day had been too polarizing, and by the time I got back to my room my mind felt like a storm.
When I finally lay down, I could not tell whether sleep was only a step away or whether I was about to spend another night staring at the wooden ceiling above me.
My mind raced.
After today, part of me wanted to hunt more elites.
Another part of me never wanted to see one again.
I did not know what I was going to do tomorrow.
Maybe that was the best part of being here.
No track.
No rails keeping me in line.
But at the same time, that freedom had almost gotten me killed today.