Parallel (A Virtual Gamer's Story) [Vol.1 - Vol.4 Complete]

Chapter 73: Fate (1)

Miote examined the room, and immediately regretted venting the smoke. "What are you even doing here?" He demanded, stricken by the state of the room.

Some of the beasts they brought in were lying on examining tables, their bodies torn apart, but somehow still breathing. Just as Miote was about to wonder how such a thing could be, he noticed makeshift IV bags linked to each of them. These certainly were not of this world, so only Kashi could have crafted them.

Miote identified the contents of the drip and was quite surprised to see Tier 3 health potions inside. It was these potions that were keeping the beasts from joining the circle.

"Hmm?" Kashi's eyes traveled the room, seemingly only then realizing just how terrible it looked. "Oh, apologies. Should have warned you about those."

"Forget the warning," Miote chided. "Explain what this is all about."

Kashi nodded distractedly as he carved runes onto some gemstones. "Well, you see, the thing is I met this Grandmaster Alchemist in Rosendun, and she had all these jars filled with raw materials for recipes. I always wondered how she managed to get so many. It's not like she was a warrior, and she definitely wasn't receiving monsters daily."

Miote watched as he placed the gemstones on an enchanting table then walked over to the forge. "How'd she get them?"

Kashi paused for the briefest of seconds. "Well, I still do not know. But that is not the point." He picked up a flaming mass from the flames, placed it on an anvil, and begun hammering it into shape.

"What is?" Miote called over his shoulder as he studied some finished(?) works left on a workbench.

"Syel told me about something he was told in the caves. The Order could use dark magic or something to force a target to not return to the circle after death."

Miote whistled as he picked up and then examined a pistol. As expected of the daeben: Magnificent craftsmanship. "Remind me to apologize to Heru. She called you out on using black magic."

"Who?"

"Never mind."

"Oh, Heru. Yeah, I remember her. That was the day I succeeded in synthesizing Nyte-Nyte." The thing he hammered took the shape of a saber, which he placed into a trough containing Slief blood (Slief's were the ninjas of the wasteland. The little monsters, which looked like hairless monkeys, hunted in the dead of night with brilliant camouflage and speed. They were semi-intelligent and housed their treasures in underground caves. Kashi had found that soaking weapons and armor in their blood during the manufacturing stage gave an increase to speed and stealth.

"Yes, she was especially thrilled to meet you," Miote confirmed as he stopped at what seemed to be a bow made solely of crystals (it had no clean shape, the crystals jagged and rough.) Conversely, it had no bowstring, and had a placard tagged 'Ginyx.' Something about it drew his hand...

"Don't touch that!" Kashi warned, his voice unusually sharp. "Unless you plan to kill us both."

"Yeah, sure," Miote muttered as he shook his head and continued his self-tour. "You were saying something about stopping targets from returning to the circle?"

"Oh yes," Kashi said, placing the length of the cooled saber into the craft sphere that appeared above the anvil. He picked up a guard and handle he had made separately and also added those to the sphere. "Well," he continued as he struck the sphere, "While practicing with the materials in this lab, I found that most of the items which rarely or don't at all fall as drops were really effective, and had interesting side-effects."

"So, what? You decided to turn into Dr. Frankenstein."

"Frankenstein gave life to an inanimate object. I'm simply prolonging the death of living things."