Mortimer, page 33
part #6 of Everybody Loves Large Chests Series
Almost being the operative word.
The greedy creature couldn’t help itself, so it reached down to pick up the shiny gem after barely a moment’s consideration. However, the instant it grasped it, the gem suddenly flashed with a blinding light as something activated. A loud screeching noise and a rush of air accompanied the sudden light show, followed by the unmistakable clatter of metal on metal, among other things. It wasn’t until a few seconds later that the pink gem Boxxy was still stubbornly holding onto finally relented and returned to a significantly more inert state.
Once the dust had settled, the shapeshifter found itself buried knee-deep in a pile of armor, weapons, clothes, potions, gold coins, and a bunch of other miscellaneous items. It spotted many familiar objects in the mess, such as several stacks of bombs, precisely five kilograms of a certain dryad’s specially prepared human jerky, a few old bronze shields, and a toolbox with a tinkerer’s odds and ends. Most important of all, however, was the jeweled hilt of an enchanted mithril rapier sticking out of the mound as if demanding to be grasped.
Boxxy slowly, almost reverently reached down and gripped the nostalgic weapon. Kora and Xera looking on in stunned silence as it gently pulled it out of the item pile. The creature didn’t know how or why, but the lost contents of its Storage had returned to it. That mana sponge of a gemstone was certainly responsible, and the creature’s curious nature screamed at it to figure out its secrets. However, Boxxy had more important things to do right now than ponder the academic ramifications of this anomalous event.
Namely, putting every last piece of gold or equipment back in its rightful place.
*RRRUMBLE*
Just as it finished reclaiming its loot, however, the underground facility was once again shaken by something too localized to be an earthquake.
“What is that, anyway?” asked Boxxy.
“Ah, those would be the idiots I bamboozled into helping me achieve vengeance for your sake, Master.”
“Idiots? Which idiots?”
“Well, you see…”
After a brief explanation from Snack, Boxxy was finally able to grasp how she was able to make it this far inside what was surely a secure compound. The monster could work with this and warmed up its rusty scheming muscles. It threw the relentlessly smiling djinn a sideways glance while considering its options. It hated to admit it, but it was thoroughly impressed with her initiative. Even though her master was dead, the demoness had still taken steps to maintain its Facade. While unexpected, it was by no means an unwelcome surprise, and definitely deserving of a special reward.
However, before Boxxy could re-integrate back into society, it first had to cover its tracks.
“Arms,” it called out.
“Sup boss? Got a job for me?” she hopped in place expectantly.
“Yeah. There are some things in this base that I need you to smash for me.”
“Alriiight! … Is what I want to say, but I could really use a play-by-play here, boss. The big man hasn’t shown us a single episode of the Boxxy show ever since you… y’know, so I have no idea what’s been going on. Like, you won’t just suddenly keel over and drop dead or anything, right?”
“No, I won’t. At least, I don’t think I will. I still need to finish comparing notes with Snack, but for now…”
Boxxy rummaged through its Storage’s recently restored contents. It pulled out and immediately chugged a mana potion. It used most of the replenished MP to create a brand new Mirror Image. The clone assumed the Sandman’s guise, complete with billowing cloak, armored limbs, and masked head, while the original slipped back into Keira’s well-tanned skin.
“Follow my clone, it will show you the way to your objective.”
When Boxxy strangled Professor Honoka to death earlier, it didn’t just eat the body after gleefully watching the life drain out of her eyes. As much as it wanted to satiate its hunger, it fulfilled the second half of its promise to her and used the Broken Reflection Skill on her corpse instead. The doppelganger ability allowed it to peer into the last few hours of the deceased Alchemist’s memories. Its original intent was to use said information to screw with Zilla’s head, but as a bonus, it learned a great deal regarding the ‘Foundation’ they belonged to. Both the nature of the organization and much of this facility’s layout was now imprinted in its mind, and it would use that information to pick up where that delusional wardrobe left off.
“Go! And crush anything or anyone in your way,” it ordered.
The archfiend smashed her left fists into her right palms with a huge, toothy grin. It didn’t take an expert on demon behavior to understand she was really looking forward to this assignment.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way, boss!”
Boxxy covered Keira’s naked body in a ripped up bedsheet it had lying around and began practicing her ‘desperately tired’ face as it slipped into character. Rather than her usual cheerful self, the catgirl would appear exhausted, tortured, and vulnerable to garner as much sympathy as possible from those two VIPs. Doing so would certainly keep them from asking too many questions. After all, if living as Keira had taught it anything, a cute girl in tears was one of the most potent weapons in existence.
“Snack, you’re with me. The story is the Sandman and Arms broke in through an alternate path, found me, freed me, and had you escort me out of here. We’ll work out the details along the way.”
“Understood, Master.”
Boxxy, its clone, and the two demons all went out of the dome-shaped holding cell as one, sirens blaring in the background. While on the move, and before they could run into any more enemies, the monster went over its newly-unlocked Skill options and settled on the next step in its death-defying rise to power.
[Proficiency level increased. Hylt Metabolism is now Level 1. END +5. INT +3.]
[Hylt Metabolism]
Allows the Creeper to find sustenance in any environment by imitating the formidable constitution of hylt trees.
Requirements: Level 30 Doppelganger Job, Creeper (Hylt), END 250, INT 200
Type: Passive
Range: Self
[Effects]
Can draw nutrients from soil, water, sunlight, and ambient mana to satiate hunger.
Increases automatic HP and MP recovery by up to 20% per Level of this Skill when in direct sunlight.
Increases automatic HP and MP recovery by up to 50% per Level of this Skill when in a mana-rich environment.
Boxxy had gone back and picked a Skill it passed over at Level 30 of the Doppelganger Job in favor of Spirit Echo. The ability to eat a whole bunch of things it couldn’t before, plus the rather outrageous potential boosts to its HP and MP recovery were sure to make the creature significantly more adaptable to hostile environments. If possible, it wanted to avoid repeating the involuntary diet it had gone through while caged. It didn’t come all this way, kill all those people, and survive the wrath of an honest-to-shininess Goddess just to die of starvation in some dark hole in the ground.
Truthfully speaking, while bolstering its survival abilities was definitely a pragmatic decision, there was also another, far less practical reason it settled on this particular Skill.
The relentlessly curious creature really wanted to know whether intangible things such as sunlight or mystically-charged air were, in fact, tasty.
Part Five
Xera had left directions for Hilda, Lichter, and Drea to follow by burning images into the floors and walls she passed. That was fine in and of itself, though her choice to leave behind pictures of dicks rather than arrows was both questionable and somewhat expected. In any event, the phallic graffiti served its purpose in guiding the rest of the rescue party, though they hadn’t gotten far before they ran into serious resistance.
Which was how Hilda found herself upside down and lodged halfway through a steel wall.
“Slimes… Why’d it have to be slimes?!”
The stonekin dwarf grumbled as she dislodged herself from her predicament, landing on the ground with a heavy thud. Slimes were a bad matchup for martial fighters like her. They had high endurance and an innate resistance to physical blows, which was her main way of un-aliving things. While she would win in combat against them eventually, it would always take way too much time unless she had a massive Level advantage. The chances of a quick and easy win were practically non-existent once she ran into not one, but two queen slimes with bodies of liquid steel. The monstrous pair had taken on the appearances of well-endowed women that had amorphous blobs for lower bodies and were keeping a distance of several paces. They smiled and giggled mischievously before they charged at her once again, erratically bouncing off the walls and ceiling of the metal passageway as they closed in on her.
“Rearm!”
The massive axe Hilda was stubbornly holding onto disappeared in a flash of light and was replaced by a pair of runed swords. One of them was a white mithril blade that crackled with electricity, while the other was a pitch black longsword that smoldered with unnatural heat. Even if they could nullify her brute strength, she would still make them contend with the arsenal of magic weapons in her extradimensional armory. Smiling widely beneath her helmet, she charged forward to meet them head on.
Meanwhile, Lichter was on the other side of the wall and he wasn’t faring much better as he faced down a squad of five suspiciously well-armed and well-trained harpies in mid-air combat. The spacious auditorium he wound up in gave him a good amount of maneuverability, but the same went for his opponents. The half-bird, half-human monsters actually seemed more adept at fighting in these relatively cramped conditions than the Paladin and were practically flying circles around him.
Their air superiority was enforced by one of the feather-headed women in particular – a Shaman. A damned good one, too. Her wind-based magic amplified her allies’ already formidable flying skills, allowing them to make drastic turns and rapid accelerations with a single beat of their winged arms. At the same time, they used the talons on their birdlike feet to wield swords, bows, and spears with mind-boggling dexterity. Their sheer speed and surprisingly good teamwork allowed them to keep hitting the Paladin without letting him land a clean blow in return. That last part was Lichter’s biggest issue. Their cooperation was so good that the angelic elf now knew how powerful monsters felt whenever they had to fight a party of experienced adventurers. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation.
Unfortunately for the harpy unit, there were three small details that were keeping them from fulfilling their ironic objective. One – Lichter was still under the effects of the sound-dampening Elixir of Greater Suppression. This nullified the power of their voices, which was arguably their greatest natural weapon. Two – even if he was taking damage and they weren’t, it was like a quintet of mosquitos fighting a battleship. His stamina and endurance would win out in the end, at which point a single well-placed blow from his mighty hammer would turn any of them into mush.
Third, and perhaps most important of all, he wasn’t actually alone.
A shadow passed over the harpy Shaman in the blink of an eye, producing a single, barely audible slicing sound. A breath or two later, the winged magic user flopped onto the ground while her head landed a few meters away from her still-twitching corpse. With the air manipulator out of the picture, Lichter was finally able to catch up to the Ranger harpy that had been taking pot shots at him the entire time and splattered her against the wall like a bug. With the feathered freaks’ formation well and truly fucked, the Paladin needed less than a minute to catch and crush two more of them. Drea impaled the fifth and final one from behind, putting an end to the pointless confrontation.
“Good work.”
The Paladin punctuated his appreciative words with a nod towards the spider-demon. He had to give credit where credit was due – that fight would’ve gone on for much longer without her expert assistance.
“We’re wasting time here!” she hissed. “We need to catch the target-t-t-t-t before he escapes!”
“That is not our mission here, demon,” he replied in a stern manner.
“Maybe not yours… Tktktktktktk….”
Drea gave off an ominous-sounding chitter as she slinked back into the shadows, thoroughly reminding the Paladin why he hated working with demons. As an inherently good and compassionate person, it was impossible for him to get along with beings that were innately evil and selfish. Still, the contemptuous assassin had a point – they were wasting precious time. Lichter landed on the ground and ran out of the auditorium, back into the hallway where Hilda was still struggling with her queen slime problem.
“Amplify Magic!”
He was just about to leap in and give her a hand when he heard a very familiar voice from the other end of the passageway. He turned his head and saw the succubus that had gone ahead earlier was using yet another ability she shouldn’t have at her disposal. One that manifested itself in the shape of six rings of yellow light that looped around her elbows, knees, scalp, and waist as if she were some sort of chandelier.
“Amplify Magic!”
She used the Skill a second time, wrapping one of the queen slimes in similar-looking rings of light that orbited around her undulating body. Although this seemed like she was empowering her enemy, that assessment could not be further from the truth. At least, not when said enemy lacked offensive magic of their own.
[Amplify Magic]
The djinn’s natural affinity for magic allows them to easily magnify the effects of most Spells and Skills.
Requirements: Level 5 Djinn Job
Type: Active
Activation Time: Instant
Cost: 300 MP
Range: Self
[Effects]
Increases magic damage and healing done by 5% per Level of this Skill.
Increases magic damage and healing taken by 5% per Level of this Skill.
Increases the duration of all magical Status Effects by 5% per Level of this Skill.
The effects of this Skill will last 15 seconds.
While normally a double-edged sword, this Skill shone against magically-impotent targets like steel slimes.
“Scorching Ray!”
After prepping the stage, the winged demoness unleashed a devastating beam of white heat from the skull-headed staff in her hands. It struck one of the slimes dead on, forcing the bulbous woman to scream in pain as the dull gray color of her ‘skin’ rapidly began turning red. She immediately tried to retreat, but a well-placed body slam from Hilda made her crash into a nearby wall. This allowed Xera to keep her Spell trained on her target a few seconds longer. The thermal overload caused the slime’s body heat to increase until she started to visibly bubble over and lose consistency, ending with a spectacular explosion of molten metal.
Seeing her ‘sister’ die in a such a visceral manner snapped the other slime out of whatever battle trance she was in. Realizing that any further opposition would lead to a rather horrible death, the monster immediately retreated while she had the chance. Her body liquefied completely, allowing her to retreat through one of the drains in the floor.
“Oy!” shouted Hilda as she stomped on top of the opening. “We’re not done here, ye droopy cunt!”
“Yes, we are,” the succubus insisted while walking closer.
“What’d ye mean ‘yes we-’ Lass! Ye’re safe!”
“By the Goddess!”
Only now did both VIPs spot the small, trembling figure standing behind the succubus. The dusky skin, bright crimson hair, and fuzzy triangular ears were very much like the catgirl they came here to rescue. At the same time, her lively yellow eyes seemed dull and vacant. Her thousand-meter stare, combined with her blank expression and uncharacteristically meek attitude, gave the unmistakable impression of ‘damaged goods.’ The soiled bed sheet wrapped around her made it painfully clear that her stay here was anything but pleasant.
Lichter rushed to her side, knelt down, and gently put his hands on her shoulders.
“What did they do to you, child?!”
However, Keira did not respond. In fact, she barely even registered his presence with a fleeting glance.
“Those twiggy pricks!” growled Hilda while punching the wall. “I’ll turn ‘em all into mincemeat for daring to lay a finger on my cute disciple!”
“That is not our objective, you raging cuntwaffle,” spat out Xera. “The target is secure, and we need to vacate the area. Now!”
“She’s right, Hilda,” the Paladin agreed. “We need to prioritize her safety first.”
He carefully picked up Keira in a princess carry, trying his best not to disturb the filthy cloth covering her naked figure.
“So these sick bastards can come after her again?!” protested the dwarf. “She won’t be safe until we put every last one of ‘em in the ground!”
“My Master is already working on that,” interrupted Xera.
“He… He is?”
“I’ll explain on the way. We move!”
The succubus began feeding the rescue party the cartload of fresh bullshit Boxxy had prepared for them, but Drea, who was following behind while clinging to the ceiling, didn’t hear a word of it. She was far too conflicted to do anything but move her body on autopilot while she processed this sudden turn of events. Her master had died, that much was an unassailable truth. That was why she and Xera were in this place to begin with – to get revenge. Yet, at the same time, its Facade had made a sudden reappearance. The way her comrade acted as if this was all according to plan only amplified the stalker’s confusion. She didn’t know what to think. Was Boxxy truly back among the living? Or was this just another of Xera’s frighteningly realistic illusions? Perhaps it was something much more twisted.
“Claws.”
A deep voice only she could hear startled the stalker, nearly causing her to lose her grip on the ceiling and fall to the ground. She looked wide-eyed at the catgirl in Lichter’s arms, whose eyes were staring back at her. Or rather, given the glare’s sheer intensity, it was more like they were staring through her. It was a gaze that immediately made her nervous and twitchy, as her body recognized who was so brazenly ogling her before her mind could catch up.
