Chapter 32
Alsen lay still.
The camp had gone quiet. Arleria’s breathing had steadied against his right shoulder, her body curled toward him the way it always did when sleep took her.
The goat fur coat draped over both of them, his warmth and hers mixing underneath it.
Derell had taken watch, sitting at the edge of the saddle with his sword across his knees, firmly asleep.
Malick lay face-down in his sleeping bag, snoring into the rock.
Kern lay in a sleeping bag near the fire, not moving at all in his slumber.
All right. Just about time.
Alsen sent out a life scan. He found Luna a few minutes of walk away.
But he didn’t go. He had to give it at least ten minutes.
Upon a focused thought, he summoned the System menu. The floating text appeared, white and familiar.
First, he assigned all stat points into strength. This part of the build wasn’t up for a discussion.
Afterward, he opened the skill tree, and allocated the three pathing nodes it took to get to the level 20 major node in the Diplomat class. The pathing got him seven charisma per point, so he got to 92 charisma.
He selected the next skill, and allocated it.
Skill name: Singular FocusRequired level: TwentyDescription: Upon a direct touch, designate a person as the target. The target perceives the caster as being seventy-five percent more attractive. The effect lasts until another target is selected.Limit: 1 targetUsage: Active.
The second he allocated the node, his vision shifted. He saw himself in a vast ballroom filled with people wearing suits and dresses.
The same man with a rough stubble walked through the room, Alsen seeing him as a floating observer.
‘There is benefit to focus,’ the man’s voice said into Alsen’s mind.
‘A group fortifies itself through numbers.
It matters not whether the group is one of friends, adventurers, colleagues, or professional envoys representing a nation.
‘To worm one’s way into the group’s good graces, the most effective method is to find a single target. One member of the group is enough for the group’s cohesion to crumble. Get into the graces of one, and through them, you reach the rest.’
He walked to a woman wearing a dress that looked as if it was woven of starlight, greeting her with a broad smile. ‘To reach the one, forget the rest. Everyone wants to be the center of existence to at least someone, so be that someone.’
The vision faded. Alsen glanced at Arleria, as she softly slept, braced against him. He was going to be back in a bit.
He still waited for a bunch of minutes, wondering who the diplomat mentor was. He felt real. The archmage mentor looked like an angel, so he considered her some mythical representation.
But the diplomat guy felt real. He also looked consistent across the visions, almost as if he had made a course for the System.
He got up, gently sliding off the coat to support Arleria.
Fly.
He flew, gently and slowly, toward Luna’s location.
His build started feeling like a min-maxing aberration. All stats spent on strength, all skill points assigned to stats, now with a skill dedicated to influencing a single person. No willpower, no endurance, absolutely no passive defenses or versatility.
But that was the point.
Luna provided all the versatility he could ever need. For as long as she stayed around, he had no need to be versatile. He didn’t need passive defenses, nor endurance, nor survival skills.
All he needed was to handle what she couldn’t—magical destruction—and to be able to keep her around.
Eventually, he would reach a spell power level where his shields could defend anything, where his flight could carry him from one city to another, where even indirect missiles would annihilate any foe he needed to.
To get there, he had to level up without wasting stats or skill points.
The key to his ability to do that was keeping Luna around.
And he was going to give her a whole lot more of a reason to do that.
He found her where the scan detected her. Because he waited, she wasn’t expecting him anymore.
She may have never confirmed being able to sense his scans, but he would bet she could.
Luna had camped in a shallow depression between two boulders, barely fifty feet below the ridgeline. No sign of a fire.
Just a sleeping bag, with all her clothes, spear, and backpack, as well as sheaths and daggers lying scattered around it. She probably had a reasoning behind the placement, but that didn’t matter now.
He caught her exactly as he needed her to. Only a few strands of hair sneaked out from the sleeping bag. The way the bag stretched betrayed her position.
Two points stretched to the sides were clearly her knees, the rhythmically moving hand between them clearly working on her raised crotch. No sound escaped the bag, so most likely none got in.
He gently landed near her, careful not to startle her.
Not yet, anyway. With an amused smirk, Alsen positioned himself by her sleeping bag’s side.
He sat down on its side, perfectly positioning his ass to Luna’s side to pin her in the sleeping bag.
“Hey,” he said as he leaned back, pressed his elbow against her far leg’s thigh, resting his arm over the crotch, holding her other leg in position with his palm. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”
Luna yelped, freezing in place in the bag for a split second.
His left arm shot a dose of pain through him, but he stifled the groan. With a healthy left arm, he could have pinned her torso with it as well. Maybe next time.
The top of the bag stirred, opened, and Luna peeked out, her face as red as a well spanked ass. “What’re you doing?”
He smiled. “I’ve come to chat.”
“I was busy sleeping.”
“You seemed to be busy thinking about me.” His smile broadened. “But anyway, I’ve come to ask if any of the drugs we bought back in could serve as painkillers. The arm you nearly tore off is really messed up.”
She scanned him for a moment. Nope, he wasn’t lying, and she could see that. “Probably. Move a bit, so I can get them.”
Oh, no, he was not letting her go. She didn’t want him to let her go either. “Weren’t you flexible?”
She rolled her eyes, hiding a quick smile.
She turned even redder, stirring her upper body.
The move forced her to push the sleeping bag downer, revealing naked shoulders and collarbones.
With her left arm, she grabbed the invisible bag from seemingly nowhere, pulled it to her, opened it, and rummaged inside.
“This would be a lot easier if you weren’t pinning me to the ground from the waist down. ”
Or if she used the right arm, which still lay pinned under him, straight at her crotch. “Life’s full of challenges.”
Luna pulled out a pipe, and a leather pouch with some powder. “This should work as a great painkiller.”
“Is it an aphrodisiac?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Not one of the stronger ones.”
Most of the drugs they bought were aphrodisiacs, weren’t they? He just realized. “Let’s smoke it together then.”
She opened the pouch, deftly pushed some powder into the pipe. “Got fire?”
He focused for a split second, and the pipe started smoking. Luna licked her fingers clean, in the meantime. “I’ve been wondering what to do when we return to Vellhorn.”
Luna took a long drag from the pipe. “Cash in the reward, get fired from the group, return to pursuing the whole spiral thing. The incoming end of magic, you remember?”
Right, that. He took the pipe, smoking himself. His blood flooded to his loins. If it had any painkiller part, it worked a lot slower than the aphrodisiac one. “I really need to get my arm fixed.”
“By your new girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” Yet. “I don’t have any healing magic, and I’m not wasting system skill points on it. I haven’t seen any other healer around Vellhorn.”
“What about Marena?”
“Didn’t she leave for home?” He handed back the pipe.
She puffed intensely. “She might be back.”
Probably. Arleria made for a much more reliable option, even if it weren’t for the personal aspects. “I’ll need a bit of time to get better. After that, we go for the spiral.”
“Well, it’s not much of a discussion, but it’s the first time you’re actually talking to me about the plan. So, I’ll call it progress.”
Hah. He hadn’t thought of it that way. “I need to ask you for something. When we get to Vellhorn, I’ll likely be unable to move around because of whatever treatment I’ll be undergoing. I need you to get me drugs that cause an out-of-body experience.”
She rolled her eyes. “There are a thousand exciting and wonderful things you can ask me to do, and you ask me to buy you new drugs…” She took another drag, clearly not planning to hand over the pipe anymore. “Is it about the Pellicle?”
“Yes. The sphere at the mountain connected to it. I know how to reach for it now, what drugs to use, and how to go about it, in general.”
“Great. Do you know your way around getting into a sleeping bag, too?”
He snorted at the invitation. “I do. But I should head back, so the others don’t come looking for me. But before I go, this game between us, would you like to make it more intense?”
“How?” She narrowed her eyes. “I mean, yes, definitely, a lot more intense.”
Of course she did. He expected that. “It’d spoil the game if I told you. You’ll see tomorrow.” He stirred, not moving at all. “Well, this is a touch awkward.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What is?”
“I’m too beaten up to move. Sorry… I can’t get up by myself.”
Luna glowered at him. For a few moments, she didn’t move at all. He remained still too. He wasn’t falling for this. “You’re insufferable.” She stirred, contorting her body, twisting inside the bag to get leverage.
She reached over his back to avoid the wounded shoulder, slipped her arm under her shirt to grab him under the right shoulder, and then jerked, pulling him up a bit. He finished the move, standing straight.
But as she touched his skin, he activated the Singular Focus skill, designating her as its target.
“Thanks,” he said with a smile as she quickly covered herself with the sleeping bag. “Good night.” He pulled on his power.
Fly.