Chương 67: Mega-Consolidated Reward

I toss the axe to the ground and walk up to the cell. Based on his movements from before, he's definitely agility-heavy, so the enormous weapon will be useless.

"I can't fight back if you don't open the door," he says flatly. I grin and grab the cell door by the bar.

"Kevin, move perfectly, and as powerfully as possible without injuring yourself. Focus on the fight. Don't feel pain," I say, unconcerned with Staggard hearing. One Mind/Two Bodies He raises an eyebrow and chuckles.

"Hyping yourself up? Heh, I almost-" My muscles tense, and I clench my teeth. With my off-hand braced against the stone wall, I pull. The metal groans. Staggard's giddiness fades. The bar bends. Concern paints his gaze as it flicks between my hands. Metal screeches under the strain until the hinges snap. I heave and twist. The door flies from the cell, crashing against the far wall, shattering stone and kicking up dust. His eyes widen, and he slips around me. I reach to grab him, but my vision distorts.

When I refocus, he's gone. I whirl around, but there's no sign of him. What!? Did he have a teleportation skill? Was the cell suppressing his skills or something? Shit, I didn't think of that. Clatter My head flicks. A pouch falls off the warden's belt. There's a haze near the corpse, but the more I focus on it, the harder it becomes to perceive. Like magnets of the same polarity, an unnatural force diverts my gaze. That must be the 'infiltrator' part of piercing infiltrator.

I look to the left, and my vision refocuses. I look back, and the feeling returns. While effective in a crowded street or a long passageway, its limitations become apparent in an enclosed room. When my vision is unaffected, I know he's somewhere else. When it isn't, I know I'm looking in his general area. Using this technique, I loosely follow him as he tries to move to my flank. I coalesce my enhanced mind, focusing it entirely on resisting the effect. The haze localizes, centering itself.

Without waiting, I crouch and lunge across the room. The closer he gets, the clearer he becomes. His shocked expression flashes through the haze as he leaps out of the way. My arm surges forward, grabbing his ankle before he can escape. He curls inward, pulling himself toward me while thrusting a shortsword at my head. I stick my arm in the way. The blade pierces, gliding between the thinner bone plates in my arm. My forearm tenses, and the weapon stops in its tracks.

Staggard hangs awkwardly, my hand on his ankle and his hands hanging off the blade stuck in my arm.

"Wai-" I let go of his ankle and jerk the shortsword away in the same motion. He falls a couple of feet to the ground and grunts. Before he can move, my fist comes down on his head. The look of panic in his eyes sears itself into my mind. With the crunch of bone, his head is crushed into a bloody mess. His limbs fall, and he goes limp. Chime My stomach contracts.

"Kevin, don't-" I don't make it in time. Bending to the side, I vomit out the last meal I ate. A soul-sucking sense of cold spreads through my chest.

"Kevin, don't feel trauma." In an instant, my stomach relaxes. The compression on my heart evaporates. I wipe the remnants from my lips and stand. Looking at Staggard's body feels no different from any other dead hobgoblin. When all is said and done, he and they were pretty similar. I dust off my hands and smile.

"That was over quickly." Loosely, I look over and pluck the blade out of my armor. It only takes a minute before Heal Companion is able to fix it. System, hit me. [Hidden Objective Completed: War-Torn Criminal] [Rewards have been compounded] [Accept(279) / Bank / Consolidate] The corners of my lips pull up even further. I bet Brax will want to see this. But where's the slay notification? Did I not get experience because it's an objective? I shake my head and turn.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. It wouldn't have been much anyway. Excitedly, I run to the staircase, stopping at the new wall now blocking it.

"Hey Brax! Are you still there!?" … I wait for him to open the wall, but only silence responds. I reach into my pocket and grip the rune for stone pillar.

"Kevin, become the mana. Move well." Mana exits my skin as I build the formation. It completes with a click, then dissipates. With a soft grinding, a one-foot-wide cylinder pushes out from the center of Brax's wall. I pull my foot back, narrowly dodging the giant stone as it thumps into the ground and leaves a crack in the floor. A nervous chuckle leaks out of my mouth. That would have been embarrassing.

Sucking air through my teeth, I form the spell twice more, finally making a gap large enough for me to fit through. After slipping through the two circular holes, I turn and grimace at the workmanship. One spell is misplaced a few inches above the first hole, while the second is still misaligned. I'll have to work on my aim if I ever want to use magic in combat. I travel up the lengthy staircase and walk through both doors into the throne room. Brax is slouched on the throne, eyes staring off into space.

"Hey there buddy. Are you doing alright?" I wave and give a weak smile.

"Yeah…" Silence takes over, heavy and oppressive. I walk past the bodies, and Brax speaks right before I pass the throne.

"It's just… He was like a second father to me. When I got my class, he took me in."

"Your parents?" I ask tentatively. He waves me off.

"They're fine. It's normal to leave once you get an apprenticeship. But… we ate together. We lived together. He was so kind and forgiving."

"So how? How could he work with that man? Killing so many people."

"And for what!?" He looks me in the eyes and throws his hands up in exasperation.

"Money!?" I stand silently, knowing he doesn't want me to answer.

"I… I thought he was a great man. But he was just…" He grabs a loose rock from the handrest, throwing it hard at the closest pillar. It bounces off with a clack and falls to the ground. Sighing, he collapses further into the chair. Silence takes over again.

"Well, I'm about to accept a huge reward from the system." I say, trying to sound upbeat.

"Might have some really cool formations on it~" He doesn't respond, only looking at the ground sadly. I sigh, roll my eye, and walk up the steps to the throne. He looks up at me like a sad puppy, eyes widening as I pick him up by the shoulders and plant him on the ground.

"Cheer up." I grin, reaching out and rustling his hair. He pushes my hand away, trying to remain downtrodden, but I don't relent. I follow him as he tries to escape, rubbing his head. Eventually, he giggles, slapping my hand away. I do the same, chasing him around the room for a bit. When he starts to pant, I slow my pace and give him a break.

"So? You ready to take a look at my treasure?" He smiles while catching his breath.

"Yeah, sure." The system screen appears before my eyes. [Accept(279) / Bank / Consolidate] For the first time in forever, I press my finger onto accept. [You have earned 1 (Mythril Crate)] [Accept / Bank]"Hey, how good is mithril?" He looks thoughtful.

"It depends. Mithril only forms in incredibly high-mana environments, so the average tier and overall wealth of whatever planet you're on plays a big role." I look over with an eyebrow raised.

"You've been to multiple planets?" He shakes his head.

"No, Straff made me read up on a bunch of materials. Lots of books had various other information about history and stuff."

"And for me? How good is mithril in my hands?" Excitement fills my heart.

"With no backing and only being tier two? If it were found out where I lived, you'd be dead by the end of the cycle."

"Oh."

"But yeah, it's really good. You usually don't see anyone under tier five using it unless they're descendants or underlings of someone big." I turn back to the screen with heavy anticipation. Pressing down on accept, I quickly remember to stick my hands out in case it's fragile. In system fashion, two thick, white rings appear in the air without fanfare, dropping into my hands. They don't stop. Not prepared for the sheer weight, they slip between my grasp and crash into the ground.

Small cracks appear as stone chips shoot off from the floor. Both of us stare at the rings. Half a size larger than bracelets, the rings are several times bulkier, about three inches long and two thick.

"Dammit! I wanted a weapon!" I waited so long, so excited for something made by the system that would bolster my fighting style. But these things… They look like industrial piping. Brax bends down curiously, tentatively poking one before laying his hand on one. One brow raises. Then both go up. His eyes slam open.

"Wow!"

"What? What is it!?" I ask quickly.

"This thing's chock full of formations! I only looked for a second, and it was like a maze. There must be at least three in there!" I kneel, laying my hand on the other. Sure enough, my mana enters, and a mess of different mana tunnels curve, turn, and loop around each other.

"The system calls it the gauntlets of the enigma." Joy fills my heart at the mention of gauntlets. Identify living being [Unable to identify] My face goes flat. Figures. My version of identify isn't built for objects. And these particular objects seem pretty special. Grunting, I turn to see Brax with eyes darting under his eyelids as he parses through them. I take in the strange objects again. How are these gauntlets? They look like they belong as part of an oil refinery. Confused, I stick both hands through them.

They're way too large. It's like- Without warning, the white metal begins to melt. Brax jerks his hand back and steps away. I pull my hands back, but the metal grips to them. Jumping to my feet, I flail my arms around, but not a single drop flies free.

"What the hell!?" I whip my arms to get it off.

"Stop!" Brax sticks both hands out to calm me. I freeze. The metal deforms, spreading itself over my forearms. Shivers travel down my spine at the sensation. Like dunking my hands in a bowl of putty.

"It's a system item. It won't hurt you." Although Brax speaks calmly, his expression clearly shows he wants me to be still so he can watch. It only takes a few seconds for the process to stop, the metal hugging my skin and leading from my wrist to my elbow. The edges at each end become smooth and curved instead of angular, like they were before. I rotate my arms, taking in every angle before tapping on one with my knuckle. Damn, these are heavy. And solid.

"So, uh, is this mithril?" My eyes don't leave my forearms. Brax shrugs.

"I dunno." I look at him, exasperated.

"What? I thought you studied this stuff."

"Kevin, there's like, thousands of metals in the universe and countless more alloys. I can't be a hundred percent sure of anything. I've only been studying for a little more than a few hundred cycles." I do the math in my head. If he got his class at fourteen, that places him firmly at fifteen or sixteen years old, as I predicted. I shift the new bracers, surprised at how snug they are.

"Didn't you call them gauntlets? They look more like bracers." He observes. He steps forward and examines them.

"Try one of the formations." I nod and close my eyes. Mana flows from the constant current within my body. It pokes and prods at different entrances. The complexity is baffling. In total, there are four different formations inside. Without the experience to tell them apart, I choose one at random and start channeling. Once the first bit of mana enters, the formation greedily invites more in. This formation must be one of my better affinities. The mana spreads through the center of the gauntlet.

Noticeably, the mana avoids the ends of the bracer near my wrist and elbow. With a mental click, it completes. As I wonder about the effect, the bracer forcefully pulls my right arm downwards. The command immediately moves my body to counter, but posture means nothing against the colossal weight. My stance collapses, the gauntlet dragging my arm to the ground, crushing the stone on impact.