By the time the ghouls started visibly thinning out, Zoe was more interested in playing with her new kite than actually fighting anything. That left Lily to do the majority of the work—which was fine. It was the ice-mage’s idea to fight the undead in the first place. Also, Zoe was still advancing at a delightfully rapid pace.
Surgeon’s Eye has reached level 4!
Rejuvenate has reached level 3!
You have leveled up! You are now level 20.
+15 stat points.
+1% core progression.
“Five more levels, and we might get a decent class evolution,” Lilith said. “That’ll be interesting to see.”
Zoe blinked. A class evolution?
Popping into ‘existence’ right in front of Zoe’s face, the doll-version of Lilith sighed. “I thought we already talked about that. It’s sort of the equivalent of core evolutions for people who have the class system.”
Yes, Zoe already knew that. What she didn’t know was that she was already super close to doing one. That seemed—a little quick, honestly—but she had already done her first core evolution.
“It’s not normally this quick,” Lilith added. “Our case has been… somewhat unusual, so far. But also, it’s more common to do your first class evolution at level fifty. It’s possible to get the option at level twenty-five, though—but it’s not always a good idea.”
Zoe couldn’t help but frown at that. “What do you mean it might not be a good idea?”
Clearly sensing Zoe’s apprehension, the flying plushie was quick to reassure her. “It could also be a really good thing, and just getting the option doesn’t ever have any downsides. It’s just, you’re better off waiting until the normal level fifty if none of the options seem that good to you.”
“Oh.” That was more or less intuitive enough. The system might give her an early-bird option, but that option wasn’t necessarily good. If it was good, though, taking it then would probably make her advance even faster.
“Yep,” Lilith added in response.
Thinking it over, Zoe landed on a fairly obvious question. What if I don’t get any good-looking upgrades at level fifty? Do I keep waiting then?”
A shake of the doll’s head. “No. You don’t. At that point, you just have to accept whatever you think you can work with. It would kind of suck, but you should always have one choice that’s at least a marginal improvement. You won’t be getting anything new if you don’t make a choice at level fifty.”
That meant—wait, so assuming I get a choice at level twenty-five, will I still have those choices available if I wait until level fifty?”
Lilith’s answer was ‘yes’—with an asterisk, it seemed. “You should, yes. There might be some weird edge-cases that cause some obscure issue—but the chances of that happening are probably astronomical.” The cartoon-like doll held up a finger to shush Zoe. “And yes, even for someone like us.”
Well, that just meant that taking a class upgrade at level twenty-five was a true gamble. If you would have all the same options later—plus some—then doing it early was purely for trying to advance faster by getting stronger earlier. That sounded like the kind of risk for people who were either overly-confident—or desperate.
“Perhaps,” was all Lilith said to that. Zoe couldn’t get a read on the apparition this time. She genuinely could not tell whether the plushie approved, disapproved, or was just plain uninterested.
Either way, it literally doesn’t matter. Zoe was happy to squeeze information out of the thing—but she had little desire to stick to its advice.
So instead of figuring that one out, she felt like now was a good point to check the condition of her full status.
[ZOE BLACKWELL]
Level 20 | Rank F
Demagogue, Bloody Devotee
Higher Demon of Disdain
-Alignment-
> Infernal
> Disdain
> Blood
-Active Quests-
> Claim Your Right
> The First Harvest (229 / 250)
-Active Titles-
> Outsider
> Usurper
> Humanitizer
> No Love Among Fiends
-Stats and Bindings-
Power 120
Perception 120
Acuity 120
Durability 120
Vitality 164
-General Skills-
> Identify 4 (Rank C)
> Hallowed Touch (Tierless)
> Mana Channeling 2 (Rank F)
-Primary Class Skills-
> Acting 3 (Rank D)
> Persuasion 3 (Rank B)
> Mirage 5 (Rank E)
> Lesser Disguise 2 (Rank C)
> Cloak of Scorn 5 (Rank E)
System Display Privileges (Sys-Tier)
-Secondary Class Skills-
> Rejuvenate 3 (Rank F)
> Mending Touch 2 (Rank D)
> Rending Touch 6 (Rank D)
> Surgeon’s Eye 4 (Rank E)
> Blood Whip 9 (Rank E)
[JUVENILE BLOOD FIEND CORE]
26% Developed | Rank A
-Traits-
> Natural Weapons (Rank E)
> Arcane Antennae (Rank E)
> Bloodshaper (Rank C)
> Heart of Alchemy (Rank B)
> Personal Inventory (Rank B)
> Magic Resistance (Rank C)
-Effects-
> +60 Power, +60 Durability, +82 Vitality
> Infernal Alignment
> Disdain Alignment
> Blood Alignment
-Available-
> 63 stat points
It was looking pretty impressive, Zoe couldn’t help but think. While the overall structure remained roughly the same, she had definitely come a long, long way from the near-death fiasco that was the cult ritual. Lilith remained silent—Zoe took that as an implicit sign that her Demonic head-mate agreed.
Aside from completing the kite quest—and getting a kite—Zoe had gained five levels and quite a few stat points. Forty of those points went to actually boosting her stats—with the exception of the still-ridiculous, she’d bumped them all to exactly 120.
That left sixty-three. She didn’t have any intention of spending those, because she had been gaining them fast enough that anything under one-hundred felt like a reasonable buffer to have.
Also, she’d gained quite a few levels in her skills. Both acting and persuasion had increased from level one to level three over the course of the night—entirely due to her interactions with Lily. After her explosive first attack against the mob of ghouls, blood whip and rending touch had remained at levels nine and six respectively—but that was already a good amount of improvement. Aside from surgeon’s eye and rejuvenate, cloak of scorn had leveled up once. It was now at level five.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Zoe still didn’t understand much about what it did, but levels were levels. Also, she’d only leveled up rejuvenate twice by spamming it on Lily. At this point, using it on herself was practically a net loss. The amount of magic it drained took more time to recover than it took her body to recover passively with the bloodshaper trait.
The most important development, though, was definitely the kite.
“Woo-hoo!” Zoe cheered as the kite did a 720-degree spin, plummeted down just inches away from the ground, skating just above the surface, and arched back upwards into the moonless night. It wasn’t that impressive—but it was also harder than it looked. Zoe had never actually flown a kite before.
“It might help that it’s a magic item and barely requires any wind,” Lilith remarked rather dryly. “I doubt we’d be so skilled with a normal kite.”
The fact that it was true only made Zoe even more pleased to have gotten the kite as a quest reward. A magic-filled new world could be all fighting, killing, and growing stronger. Zoe would have to ask for a refund if that were the case.
“Are you going to help me, or are you just going to keep flying your stupid kite?” Lily was currently struggling to fend off four especially fast and agile ghouls at the moment. She was doing alright so far—but it was a bit of a stalemate. One of the ghouls had already lost an arm, but that didn’t stop them from continuing to hound the elemental summoner from all sides. It was bad enough that the ice-mage had stopped running backwards and was now moving in the ordinary forwards direction.
“If you can spare the attention to complain at me, you can handle it yourself,” Zoe fired back. “I’m busy too, you know. A little tied-up here.”
“Yeah, tied up with a fucking kite,” Lily snarled. Lunging to the side, she relieved a ghoul of its leg. While that didn’t kill it, it left the monster unable to keep up with the pace of the pursuit.
One down, two and four-fifths to go, Zoe thought. When Lilith asked what she meant by that, Zoe explained that it wasn’t entirely accurate to say there were three ghouls left if one of them was missing an arm. It’s not going to bleed out or anything, so taking out an arm is a decent chunk of progress. It’s like those enemies in games that have multiple components with different health bars.
Zoe’s logic was flawless, but Lilith didn’t seem convinced. “That has got to be the stupidest way to count something I’ve ever heard.”
Uh, no it’s not! Zoe knew for an absolute fact that wasn’t true, because Lilith had all of her memories. Remember that time in ninth grade when we thought we could count cards but also thought that the face cards were worth eleven, twelve, and thirteen? That was pretty stupid.
“And embarrassing,” Lilith added. “Don’t remind me of that. Maybe we’re just bad at counting things.”
That was probably true, Zoe had to admit. Either way, she still thought you couldn’t say you had a whole ghoul if it was missing an entire arm.
_____
Lily decided right then and there that this shitty Demon was just as bad as Lord Darius. Sure, the whole ‘kiting’ thing had worked out pretty well—up until the Demon pulled a literal kite out of nowhere and started dicking around.
Honestly—the elemental summoner didn’t know who that reflected poorly on—that this Demon carried on in a similar way to Lord Darius, or that Lord Darius was as bad as a literal Demon. If anything, that just made it worse—and Lily couldn’t help but feel like it was closer to the former.
As she bisected a particularly daring ghoul with her sword of winter’s edge, Lily’s thoughts turned back to the question of where Andric was. It was frankly quite odd that the minder sent by her biological parents hadn’t caught up to them yet. Despite how frustrating it was to be constantly under his watch, Lily felt real worry. It wasn’t like him to let her disappear for long—especially in an area as dangerous as this.
The most likely thing the ice-mage could imagine was that something else had delayed him—or worse. It was still nearly unthinkable—but what other explanation was there? It was also rather concerning. The alchemist was the most combat-capable member of their expedition by far.
“You look deep in thought about something.” Lily made a short yelp as the Demon spoke from right beside her. She hadn’t noticed the creature approaching. Frowning, the Humanoid Demoness moved away slightly. “Didn’t mean to spook you.”
Skewering three ghouls with a single spike of ice, Lily shook her head. “It’s fine.” The Demon—it called itself ‘Zoe’—was really quite Human-seeming. The mostly Human appearance it had chosen, combined with its bizarre attitude towards everything, made it somehow more unsettling. Lily had encountered a few higher Demons before—and more than a few lower—and none of them had been anything like this.
Then again, the elemental summoner thought as she ran forwards again to regain some ground—all of the higher Demons were pretty different from each other. This one could simply be following the pattern of being predictably unusual.
“You seem worried about something,” it said again, “and I get the feeling it’s not me this time.”
Well, you’re only mostly correct about that, Lily thought. But what should she say? Screw it. I’ll just tell it the truth. Ironically, that was often the best approach when dealing with the more intelligent Demons. It was actually a major part of the Blodmane approach to dealing with infernal monsters. Avoid lying—but you should never be fully open with them either. “I’m just wondering what’s taking Andric so long. The alchemist who was with us. I expected him to show up a while ago.”
“Are you worried something happened to him?”
Lily shook her head. Technically, she was just a little bit—but she was mainly worried that something had simply delayed him considerably. Either way, it definitely wasn’t good. “He’s always annoyed when I slip away—but if something serious ended up holding him up for this long…” she trailed off.
“You’re worried he’s going to kill you.” The Demon said it more like a statement than a question—and the Demon is probably correct, Lily thought, her eyes narrowing and her gaze darkening.
“The Demon is correct.” Both of them froze upon hearing the terrifyingly familiar voice. Spinning around, Lily came face-to-face with a pissed off alchemist. No—he should have been pissed off. Instead, his face was a cold, flat mask.
Lily audibly gulped. That’s bad. Pissing him off enough that his cool demeanor slipped was already bad enough. Pissing him off so much that he circled back around to stoicism was even worse.
_____
Zoe looked back and forth between the two, her eyes moving like the pendulum of an old grandfather clock. They’d moved to a nearby rooftop to have their little chat—she and Lily had thinned out the ghouls enough by this point that the idea of a defensible fortification actually worked as intended.
Also, the curse Lily put on herself was supposedly about to wear off.
“I would be considerably more irate with you had this Demon decided to kill you upon making your acquaintance. As it is, I suppose I’ll have to thank you for accidentally getting Zoe here to reveal itself.” Andric’s eyes roamed up and down Zoe’s body much in the way the chief cultist’s had.
She couldn’t help but shiver a little. Why were all the guys here looking at her like that? She didn’t know if the clinical, power-hungry appraisal was better or worse than the lust she was much more familiar with.
Also—Can everyone please stop calling me an it? That was getting annoying. It was insulting, actually. Just because I’m a Demon doesn’t mean I’m a thing. I’m a very nice and respectable formerly-Human woman, thank you.
“And you.” Andric addressed Zoe directly.
“Me?”
“Thank you for your assistance.”
Oh. That was unexpected. Then again, a lot of things were unexpected recently. That’s why Zoe wasn’t surprised, even though she didn’t expect it. “Thank you for thanking me.” That wasn’t how you normally said that, but it was probably fine. Honestly, Zoe wanted to just ditch these two and go play with her kite.
That wasn’t much of an option, though. Not that anyone said she couldn’t—but Zoe got the idea that she shouldn’t run off right now.
“That’s probably for the best,” Lilith said. “It would be a shame to do all that work getting Lily on your side, only to run away with nothing but a magic kite.”
Yes, that was exactly what Zoe was thinking. The kite was a definite bonus, but ingratiating herself into the group was still the main point. She didn’t think Andric would chase her down or anything—it would just be counterproductive. It was just another one of those awkward interpersonal moments you had to suffer through. Just, in the context of a lot more high-stakes violence than usual.
Zoe’s attention snapped back into focus as the alchemist clapped his hands together. “Good. Now that the explanations are finished, I suggest we move on.” He looked at Lily first. “You.”
Lily gulped again—Zoe could hear it. “We’re going back to the buddy system at least until we return to Verdanport—no, not that. Until we return to the Gershenfeld estate in Verdanport and after everyone who needs to discuss this incident is satisfied.”
Buddy system? Zoe raised an eyebrow. What’s that supposed to mean? The only thing she could think of was that thing for children where they had to each hold the end of a short rope when you sent them off in pairs. It was like a scouting thing. If that’s what Andric meant here—yeah that sounds pretty humiliating.
Judging by how the already-pale woman paled several impossible shades further, Zoe suspected her assumption was close enough.
“And you, Demon.”
Zoe’s gaze flicked over to meet the alchemist’s eyes far too quickly. She couldn’t help but curse herself for reacting to that particular—form of address so automatically. Lilith laughed, but Zoe ignored the vile fiend.
“I suggest you resume whatever you were doing to conceal yourself. Most people aren’t going to take the revelation as well as we have.”
Zoe started to nod.
“While that is certainly true, I’m afraid that by now they are all well-aware.”
All three of them spun around to face an unfamiliar voice. Unfamiliar to Zoe, because her current two companions clearly recognized the aged gentleman who had just emerged onto the rooftop. A complex mixture of emotions crawled across both their faces.
“Good evening, Lord Darius,” Andric greeted him after a moment.
During that time, Zoe took the opportunity to study the man. Despite his elderly appearance, he was quite handsome—tall, sharp-jawed, and still possessing a full head of thick—if snow-white—hair. He wore a long, deep-blue coat over some sort of old-fashioned suit and a matching pair of slacks. Well, it looked old to Zoe. That could just be the current style here.
She did also notice he was completely clean-shaven. He definitely could have pulled off a fantastic gentlemanly beard—not that he needed it. As she continued to examine the man, he pulled out a silver pocket watch from within his vest. “I believe it should be ‘good morning.’ Ah, well—good morning Andric. And good morning to you, Lady Gershenfeld—and to the unnamed Demon standing next to you.”
Based on the reactions around her, fragments she remembered from conversations earlier—but most of all, from the way Lord Darius carried himself and spoke—Zoe knew instinctively that he was powerful.
“I would advise treating him in the same category as the cultist chieftain or that paladin,” Lilith cautioned her. “…if not higher.”
Still, he kind of pissed her off. Being called ‘unnamed’ on top of being repeatedly referred to as an ‘it’ was crossing a line. It did help that Lord Darius had said that last bit in a cheeky tone, though—as in, it helped Zoe feel confident lashing out, not making it less irritating.
“Not knowing my name doesn’t mean I don’t have one,” Zoe scowled. “And I’m a she, not an it.”
Several other people clambered up the stairwell at the same time. Lord Darius arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Have my students offended you? I don’t recall ever using that particular pronoun for you.”
Zoe didn’t know how to react anymore, so she just decided to let this play out—whatever this was. From the wary and half-defeated looks of Andric and Lily, she suspected she wasn’t alone.
“Ah! But the name!” Zoe tried to answer, but the strange man interrupted her before she could. “No no! Let me guess… let’s see—Esilyn?”
“No.” Zoe did answer, but she was paying more attention to the three people who’d stepped up around Lord Darius. She recognized them of course—that enchanter Millie with her bow, the archmage Arthur with his thin metal staff—and most worrying, the dollar-store paladin Sean.
Strangely, they all looked more exhausted than angry or confused.
“Oh, not Esilyn? Then maybe it’s Grace.”
Zoe blinked at that. Wasn’t that the name she made up for the cultist chief—what was his name again, Basil? That would be a weird coincidence. A bit wary herself now, she slowly shook her head.
Then Lord Darius snapped his fingers. “Oh, silly me. I get it now.” The slight smile creeping across his features looked slightly predatory. Like a playful cat, Zoe thought. “I know—it was Zoe Blackwell, wasn’t it.”
Zoe’s eyes widened. If he had only guessed the first part, she could assume one of the other three party members had told him, and he was just messing with her. She’d already told them her name was Zoe. But…
I never gave any of them my last name.