The fight lasted for about 3 minutes.
Alone I was able to easily take on 6 of them leaving the other 4 to Milky, even Sonnia who I wasn’t expecting to take part in this fight came to help, not in the form of actual fighting but distracting one of the rats on Milky’s side long enough until Milky was able to deal with the other 3, unfortunately though Milky ended up pushing a rat into the sewer stream in the heat of battle essentially losing one.
At the end Sonnia pathetically collapsing onto the ground as she gasped for air like a fish on dry land, I had expected her to be out of shape and not used to exercise but even then her current state was beyond “out of shape”, seeing her like this I took a mental note to remind myself that I should work her a bit harder for her to improve her physique.
-Hahhh…hahh..don’t you think its about time we go back ? We already have 15 rats thats gotta be enough for a meal right ?
Sonnia asked, but I wasn’t paying attention to her, instead I was observing Milky who sat beside her, she also was out of breath but not enough to gasp for it, her breathing was well regulated, she also wasn’t injured in anyway either lest I would have used a [Lesser Healing] spell on her and compared to Sonnia she didn’t sweat as much meaning that she still had a lot of excess energy to burn which was good.
I turned back to Sonnia.
-No, 15 is not enough, if we want to eat the entire day without having to hunt for the rest of the day while also storing some food for tomorrow morning we need at least 34, but since we are working on a empty stomach we should carry these 15 back to our base, prepare them and eat them, we will then return back here and hunt some more, after wards we will train, eat, sleep and repeat, since we now are 3 people we can do it consistently on shifts as well.
I laid out the routine, Milky didn’t seem to be bothered about the regime and when I mentioned the eating and sleeping part her eyes seemed to light up brightly, Sonnia on the other hand paled when she heard what we were going to do, she didn’t seem to be against it per say but it didn’t look like she liked it either.
-Ehm…Master~ if you don’t mind me asking…how are we going to train ?..
I smiled, Sonnia suddenly shuddering as if she had somehow seen my eerie smile, but I didn’t mind and patiently explained to her.
-Basically we will do all sorts of things, but most importantly I am expecting you to do it until I say you can stop, if we don’t get serious with the training how are we ever going to become stronger and escape the island ? Don’t you agree Sonnia ?
I pushed my point, not giving her any space to refute as Sonnia could only make a bitter face as if she had swallowed something foul.
-Uhhh…(Sigh) Yes, Master…but please have mercy on me..
Sonnia resigned herself, while Milky consoled her by her side with a gentle smile on her face.
-Now, now, Sonnia, I don’t think Master will be too harsh on us, and isn’t this far better then before ? We get to eat and sleep as much we want ! Do you remember how we always slept in shifts and how difficult it was to get food for the past 6 months ! I almost cried when we ate the meat Master had prepared, so we should do our best !
Sonnia made a wryly smile at the bright Milky not sure what to say anymore.
-Ahhh..you’re always so simple Milky, but at the very least I am glad that you can be so bright again.
-Haha !
The girls played with each other for a bit, I let them be for the moment while collected the rat bodies, after they were done playing around I distributed the amount they would carry each, both me and Milky carried 6 of them while Sonnia got 3, Sonnia didn’t look like she was struggling when held those rat carcasses but she did make a unpleasant face holding those smelly rats near her, Milky offered to carry Sonnia’s share but Sonnia strictly refused saying that she would do her own task by herself.
I didn’t comment on any of that, but I would have frowned a bit if Sonnia really gave her weight to Milky but even then I wouldn’t have said much and simply increased Sonnia’s training, luckily such thing didn’t need to happen, even though Sonnia was physically inept she wasn’t incompetent, if she was she wouldn’t have been able to become such a skilled [Merchant], even though it was hard to see I understood that Sonnia had been weight down by a lot of things in the past, she gave herself the excuse of not being useful in battle because of her blindness which is why she must have focused entirely on her [Merchant] class only, and honestly I don’t blame her, becoming blind through injury even if expensive can be cured with a high level spell like [Greater Healing] or [Regeneration], but if you are from a race that is blind naturally such thing is not possible since you didn’t have any sight to restore to begin with.
The only other way then is to either rely on magic or to rely on skills, [Gray Spell Mastery] for example has a very nifty spell called [Arcane Eye] which only affects its user, the [Arcane Eye] itself possesses color vision, it can also travel a whole kilometer for scouting but doing so will consume a lot of mana and [Arcane Eye] is a spell you can only learn at level 3 of [Gray Spell Mastery].
On to the next best thing there are [Surgeons].
[Surgeons] are one of the class advancement paths of a [Physician], their signature skill is called [Transplant] using this skill they can perform a surgery on somebody and safely remove or add new organs into the body, but the usage of this skill is not just limited to organs, arms, legs, mouths, noses, eyes, ears, if its on the body you can remove it and replace it with something else and the limitations don’t end here, but continuing would be too long.
Basically a [Surgeon] with a high level [Transplant] skill could give a creature without color vision, color vision, I don’t quite remember anymore at which level they could do that since [Surgeon] is not a popular class and it had been a long time since I last wrote the details of the class, but I know they can do it certainly.
…
Hmm..on a side note, maybe I should pick [Eidetic Memory] as my first feat, other feats such as [Quick Learner] and [Lucky] may fit my situation better, but my knowledge about the game itself may prove to be far more useful then anything else..it was me who had created the entire game after all, if I wrote it then it should still be inside my head, my old age made me forgetful, but now that I am young again my memories have been awakening the more I recalled, if I get [Eidetic Memory] maybe I don’t have to claw at those memories anymore and just recall them whenever I want ?
I lightly considered, but not thinking about it too deeply as I had already decided that I would make that decision once I got there first.
Returning back to Sonnia, I was currently just thinking about how to make her [Listening] skill cross the level boundary so she can substitute it for her eyes, fortunately I still remembered how to train this particular skill so it shouldn’t take too long, further more there were a few other plans I had in store for Sonnia if the opportunity presented itself, but I am not completely sure yet.
-Ehm…Master~why do I have the feeling that you are thinking about something bad right now ?…
-You’re imagining it, now move on we gotta go quickly before the rats find us again..
I urged them a bit more, not expecting Sonnia’s intuition to be so good, well actually its as expected from a [Merchant], without that kind of intuition she wouldn’t have been able to become such a accomplished [Merchant] after all.
I mused, quickly leading these two back to our base, I cast [Lesser Cure] and [Cleaning] on each of them once the moment we returned, the reason I did that was because we had just returned from the sewer which was full of bacteria and viruses that held all sorts of diseases and sicknesses, Sonnia and Milky weren’t like me they didn’t have any immunity towards disease like I had with my [Scavenger] racial ability which is why I made it a point from now on to always cast these spells on them whenever we came back.
They liked it too, not sure why but it looked as if they felt more relaxed after undergoing the healing and cleaning process.
While at it I also used [Cleaning] and [Lesser Cure] on the rats we were going to eat, unfortunately I couldn’t us [Cleaning] and [Lesser Cure] on every single one of the rats since I didn’t have enough mana for that, in the end I could only leave them be temporarily until I recovered my mana but at the same time who knows what kind of evil these corpses would start to brew inside of them even if I let them be for a few hours.
Honestly I didn’t want to do this but it seemed as if there was no other choice.
-[Preserve]
I cast [Preserve] a [Gray Spell Mastery] spell that slows down the spoilage of food by 2 times for 7 days, the spell itself only costs 4 MP to cast, the reason I hadn’t cast it before was because doing so would remove any [Food Buff] on the food and any future food it was made from, the [Food Buff] is vital to more efficient training, but keeping yourself fed is more important.
-Wow, Master, you know so many spells ! Even the [Preserve] spell ! Most [Mages] don’t even bother learning this spell since it isn’t very useful in most situations other then long journeys where food spoils easily.
Sonnia chipped in watching me cast my magic on the corpses, her [Magic Sensitivity] even allowed her to discern what kind of spell I was using, most likely because she had seen it cast before.
Thinking about it she hadn’t really told me what her partial blindness meant, even though I understood it since I saw her status window, me just acknowledging it would probably seem odd maybe this is a good opportunity to ask.
-Sonnia you said that you were “partially blind” before, but from what I can see you don’t seem to be blind at all, you know where to walk and earlier you were also the first to notice the rats coming our way and this time you can even detect the magic I am using, so if you wouldn’t mind how exactly do you see ? Keep in mind that I am only asking because I want to get a better idea on how to teach you from now on.
Sonnia looked at me, her stare coupled with her expression seemed to imply something but I continued to feign ignorance as I waited for her reply.
After a few seconds she stopped doing that and averted her gaze before answering me.
-And here I thought you knew all this time~, well I won’t comment on your mysterious nature just like you won’t comment on my, basically this is how my vision works…
And just like that she began explaining to me in detail on how her [Life Vision] worked , she even disclosed to me her [Magic Sensitivity] but called it a natural talent instead of a mutation since she isn’t able to differentiate the two.
She also mentioned her high [Listening] skill saying that she had been relying on sound ever since she was born of course she never did any active or specialized training to increase her [Listening] skill and instead just passively relied on it which is why it got the level it is now.
On that topic I was about to suggest to her a way to actively train her [Listening] skill but before that it seemed as if Sonnia had her own question to ask me.
-Now that I answered you, I’d like to ask you question as well, don’t worry it ain’t anything personal, I just wanted to continue the discussion we went out to hunt..
-You mean the escape plan ?
I said, skinning the rat as I nonchalantly worked while talking, the odor that came from cutting the rat open briefly made Sonnia frown but she ignored it.
Milky on the other hand who sat beside asked whether or not she could help with the skinning process since she also had the [Skinning] skill, I told her she was welcome, resulting in her silently skinning the rats just like me in a attempt to finish quicker and get to eating, I watched her do her work intending to give her tips on how to remove the skin properly just as I lead my conversation with Sonnia.
-Yes, the plan, I’ll be honest here ever since we went out to hunt I’ve been thinking about ways we could reasonably leave the island in once piece and so far none of the plans were viable, its just as I said before, the island is too secured, we need either a overwhelming force or a fool proof method, what this means is that we either need to round up the prisoners and stage a riot for an opportunity or have somebody inside the wardens to help us out, using our ability alone there is no way we can leave the island just with 3 of us.
(Swish)
I cut through the fat cleanly removing the skin as I pulled from both sides near the stomach and worked my way up, I demonstrated it to Milky who followed suit moving her dagger just like me, after checking to see whether or not she did it right I returned back to Sonnia.
-You are right, just the 3 of us isn’t going to be enough if we went with a normal escape plan, but don’t worry the method I am proposing is not going to need the help of the prisoners nor the wardens or anyone else for that matter, in fact the only thing we need to do is to get stronger and then remove the brands on your wrists, remember we only have a single year before we can attempt this and if we fail we may end up dying or will need to wait another 3 years before we can attempt this again.
Sonnia pondered for a moment holding her chin.
-1 year, you have been saying this since the beginning of your plan but what will exactly happen in 1 year ? I don’t know much about this island, but what I do know is that the ships with new prisoners always arrive at the end of each month at the harbor guarded by the wardens, faster transportation such as [Warp Gates] don’t exist on this island since it isn’t worth it even with the profit gained from the [Pestilence Ore], so what exactly will happen in 1 year that isn’t already happening or known ?
Milky stopped working for a moment also curious about my answer, but I didn’t stop cutting or pulling and instead successfully removed the skin placing the skinless rat on top of the chopping board ready to gut it, while asking Sonnia.
-Sonnia do you know about the industrial revolution happening in the Imperia continent right now ?
-Huh ?
Being suddenly asked such a off topic question got Sonnia momentarily off balance in this conversation, but she quickly recovered only needing a few seconds to think before giving her answer.
-Yes of course, before we were caught, the Gastel empire even showcased their newly made invention that is supposed to revolutionize transportation, its a vehicle called the “Train” which looks like a huge iron caterpillar that uses something called “Rails” to move on. There was a big gathering full of a rich and influential people from all walks of life, even I was there and I even got to ride on one of them, and honestly even though it looks like a caterpillar it is by no means slow, its faster then most prized [Horses] or [Komodos] I’ve ever seen, on top of that its incredibly stable too and doesn’t need to rest since its a machine that runs on [Magic Stones], it can also carry a lot of things not just cargo but people too who sleep inside while the train continues moving. Back then together with Milky we even got to ride it to the next closest city in 2 days which would have usually taken 4 to 5 on [Horse] back, it was incredible.
Sonnia said, reminiscing about the past when she wasn’t stuck inside this island full of poison and blood, even Milky joined it but from her expression it was clear that she thinking about something completely different then Sonnia.
-Oh yeah ! I remember that the chocolate tarts on that train were especially tasty ! I never ate such delicious sweets before on top of that they were so fluffy and light as well just like air ! I wonder how they made them !
-Milky.. I really wonder if you ever think about anything but food..
-How rude ! Of course I do, but food is important don’t you think !
They squabbled, generally playing around but not for too long since Sonnia still was in the middle of a conversation and Milky still needed to finish gutting the rat, I let them be for the moment because I felt like moments of peace like this should be cherished, I didn’t have a family in this world unfortunately, but I understood from watching others that it is important to connect with those close to you who knows maybe their not going to ever get such opportunity if not now thinking about the place we were in, but I wouldn’t let such thing happen, they were my partners and if it was even just one thing, I would keep my word and get everyone out of here together.
-Ahem…anyways, what does the industrial revolution have to do with the events that will happen 1 year from now on ? You’re not trying to say that we will escape by train right ? Because railroads can only be build on solid land and from what I saw this island is surrounded by one and one thing only, water.
I smiled, feeling stupid for smiling at her last sentence, but keeping that smile anyway, I finally told her how we were going to escape.
-Sonnia do you know what a “Airship” is ?
A Place Of Legends 