Chapter IV.LI (4.51) - Reward

  After rushing Evie to the nearest hospital, the medics there reassured Kizu that the invisibility and paralyzation venom wasn’t going to cause any permanent damage. They were very intrigued about how Evie ended up that way though. This was true invisibility, not just camouflage, which meant it originated from a source a magnitude of power higher than the average mage or monster. Kizu stretched the truth of his ignorance a bit, but he truly didn’t know what sort of venom had been used on Evie. After his questioning, the hospital staff ushered him out of the building, promising him that his friend just needed to take in some antivenoms and rest.

  Before entering the hospital, Kizu had instructed Sojan to remain invisible and wait on a park bench nearby. As an added safety measure, Mort remained with the possessed golem.

  With that now out of the way, Kizu wandered down the streets towards the constable station. The closest one to the hospital was in a bit of a rougher side of the city and not an area he’d explored before with either Evie or Ione. He passed by an entire block made up of tents. Tainted men and women were lined up down the street, wooden bowls in hand, waiting to be served stew. Very few of them even glanced at Kizu while he passed by, but those who did eyed him with suspicion. As if he intended to cut to the front and steal food.

  The sun had begun to set when he found the station. Like he’d suspected, he found a quest board posted out front, just like the one near the academy. He skimmed the listings. Lots of odd jobs down at the docks and requests for specific fish. And there was one wanted poster for a bandit in the area. Apparently the bandit had rounded up a hundred or so refugees from Edgeland and was using them to control a major trading route. After reading that, Kizu realized that several of the quest notices specifically stated they weren’t accepting Tainted. Especially not on the protection escorts.

  “This is bad,” Kizu muttered. It was no wonder Emilia desperately wanted to get back with him. The public opinion of Tainted here had soured nearly to fermentation. Trade negotiations would be a blood bath for someone business minded like Emilia.

  He entered the constable station and waited in line. In the nonurgent line, people shuffled forward slowly. Nobody seemed particularly keen on chatting which suited Kizu just fine. He pulled out a small notebook and quill from his spatial storage and practiced a few numerology equations while he waited.

  “Next,” a board voice called out.

  Kizu slipped his homework away and approached the bored looking clerk. The man had yellow, straw-like hair, shoulders that were slumped, and eyes that never left the desk in front of him.

  “I finished this quest assignment.” He slid the paper forward.

  The clerk remained silent for a minute while he read over the paper.

  “What was the noise disturbance?” he finally asked.

  “A golem acting erratically after its creator’s death.”

  “Hm.” The clerk half heartily raised a hand and a paper zipped across the office behind him. “Here is a list of possible rewards. Feel free to select any. I believe you are permitted to select two in total.”

  Kizu’s heart picked up speed as he skimmed over each option. It seemed that the house’s owner had been a prolific dungeon delver in his younger years so there were a lot of extremely valuable and useful artifacts. But Kizu had his bell and atlas, which allowed him to both command and view the World Dungeon at will. As amazing as a lot of these artifacts were, they paled in comparison to what he already possessed.

  “This one.” Kizu pointed at the very bottom listing.

  “‘If none of this is satisfactory, the quest fulfiller may select one single item from within the home in place of one of the offered artifacts. Note — only one single item. One schematic. One coin. And so forth,’” the clerk read. Then he finally looked up at Kizu, a frown on his face. “What do you want? I doubt anything inside the home itself will match the value of the artifacts offered.”

  “I want the golem that made the commotion.”

  “The…golem.” The clerk reread the contract then shrugged. “Nothing says anything against claiming one golem. And for your second item?”

  “My companion gets to choose her item. Can she come by later?”

  “Fine. Fill out this paperwork stating your intention, include a detailed report of the quest’s events, and sign. Also, write down your party member’s name so she can claim her reward at a later date. Then you should be fine to depart.”

  It took nearly an hour before Kizu finished all the paperwork set in front of him. But he turned it in and was granted proof of ownership of the golem.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  With that out of the way, Kizu began his return trip to the hospital. The weather remained dreary as he trudged through the streets.

  “Dragons!” A Tainted man in ragged clothing ran up to Kizu on the street, splashing through a muddy puddle in his haste. The man seized Kizu’s shoulders. His sunken eyes darted around the street, never settling on Kizu. “Dragons! They’ll come here too! Dragons! Ambition! Dragons! Fire! Burn! Death! Dragons! Danger! Dragons!”

  His grip tightened and he began to shake Kizu, repeatedly screaming, “DRAGONS!”

  Kizu jumped.

  And the next moment he stood in one of Port Kallis’ beacon receiving rooms. Despite now being kilometers apart, the man’s ranting echoed in Kizu’s mind. The man’s mental wounds had bled all over Kizu. He looked down at his quivering hands.

  “I…I could have stopped this. If I just listened.”

  It wasn’t his fault. That fault lay at the feet of the Dragons. But his choice had doomed a continent rather than a city.

  Learn from this. Adapt. Create a better world than I.

  Kizu desperately wanted to punch his soul parasite at that moment. But with that an impossibility, Kizu simply took a deep breath.

  Rather than walk across the city again, Kizu focused on Mort’s senses, feeling out the park. Then he jumped next to his familiar.

  “Welcome back!” Sojan greeted him. While the golem body remained invisible, Kizu could still see the dagger jutting out of the air. It floated above the park bench Kizu had left him at. “I was just discussing with Mort about the concept of death and souls. Have you ever stopped to consider where your soul departs to when not yanked back to the mortal plain by necromancy?”

  “There are a lot of theories,” Kizu said absently. “Some say there’s nothing. Some say we return to the world. Others believe in a land full of dead souls. That’s for priesthoods and churches to discuss.”

  “I think I was forged there!”

  “In a church?” Kizu was still rattled and not following the conversation.

  The land of the dead, his soul parasite clarified.

  “I work quite a bit like a soul,” Sojan explained. His golem body reappeared and it waved a hand at Kizu. “I take up a slot in a body like one. So I think I’m where souls come from.”

  “I don’t exactly follow. But you’re an artifact from the World Dungeon.” At least, Kizu assumed he was. He’d been found in the same box as Kizu’s necklace and atlas. Both of which seemed very much like artifacts tied to the World Dungeon.

  “Yep!” Sojan said pleasantly, as if that proved his point. “Where to next, Kizu? Another grand adventure? Fighting more of those Hon Warlords?”

  “Returning to the academy.” Hopefully he’d never have to deal with Hon politics or warlords ever again. However, he somehow doubted his luck would ever allow such bliss. “But we need to go check in on Evie first.”

  “The invisible porcupine girl?”

  “That’s the one. I’m going back in the hospital. Give me twenty minutes.” Kizu departed the two of them. As he walked away, he heard someone behind him scream at the sight of Sojan’s body.

  He found Evie sitting in a hospital bed, staring forlornly out the window. Without her usual cloak and hood covering her, she looked different sitting there with her full head of quills exposed.

  “Quest complete!” Kizu announced, doing his best to sound chipper. “Ready to head back to the academy?”

  “I failed,” Evie whispered, still staring out the window.

  “Nah, we succeeded.”

  “You succeeded. I got stabbed and fell on the stairs. I watched you fight that monster. Alone. And then at the end I hurt you.”

  “Without you there, I likely would have been the one paralyzed and on the stairs. One of us got taken out so the other one stepped up. That’s the benefit of having teammates,” Kizu said. Then he blinked, processing what she just said. “Wait, you were conscious the whole time?”

  “Yes. I am a burden.”

  Kizu set his hand on Evie’s shoulder which caused her to flinch. The motion drove several needles through the top layer of Kizu’s skin, but he ignored the pain and kept his hand in place.

  “You’re not a burden. You had a bad break. I will happily team up with you again on any other project.”

  “Charity. Everyone offers me charity.”

  “Hardly. I’m offering because I genuinely believe you’re a good teammate to have in my corner if things get rough. Do you know why I spent so much time searching for you in the workshop?”

  “Because you thought I’d been abducted,” Evie replied miserably. “Because I’m useless.”

  “Because I knew you would never run away and abandon me,” Kizu corrected. “You know, I had a similar conversation with a girl I met in the Hon Basin over spring break. She was convinced that because she couldn’t cast magic that her life was worthless. Do you believe that about her? Are people useless if they can’t cast spells?”

  “No.”

  “Then stop peddling the same nonsense in regards to yourself.”

  Evie mulled over his words for a minute. Then she turned to face him, a new fiery determination in her brown eyes. She opened her mouth and spoke with more confidence than Kizu ever thought he’d heard from her before.

  “I won’t let you down next time.”

  15 more chapters on my !!