I rode for thirty-four days. The climates continued to make no goddamn sense whatsoever, as desert bled into forest, forest into jungle, and jungle into some unholy combination of the two.
I didn't recognize the climate I was in. It was...ethereal, trees too tall, bushes too thick, and creatures far too outlandish. It was like an exaggeration of a forest, designed by someone who didn't know there was more than one kind of tree.
At least it was temperate. Not that temperature bothered me all that much anymore.
It was peaceful. No matter how outlandish the climate becomes, nature was nature. I was away from the killings and had time to myself. It was time I used to acclimate, to my new self and new circumstances. I'm sure I'd find a conflict to stick my nose in soon enough, it was only a matter of time.
Three minutes, to be exact.
"Do you hear that?" I asked, my ears far sharper than they should be.
"No?" answered Jeff. His ears swiveled around for a bit, then perked up. "Nevermind, I hear it. Sounds like a battle."
"How does that sound like a battle?" I asked. It sounded more like a metal-working factory, a bunch of steel-on-steel and vague yelling.
Jeff scoffed. "The sword and sorcery kind of battle, dumbass."
Oh. That makes more sense. "Sorry, I haven't been in too many swordfights, much less heard one."
"First time for everything," he said, as he began to gallop towards the noise without even asking me. Not that I would have stopped him. He weaved between trees gracefully, going at a speed beyond any normal horse. I'm glad my enhanced stats affected the durability of my ass, as I was now effectively immune to being saddle-sore.
"Is it still a swordfight if I bring a gun?" I mused.
Jeff thought for a moment. "I think that depends on the sword-to-gun ratio. How many are you carrying again?"
"Five."
"Let's call it 75% for it to still count as a swordfight."
I hummed. "I think you're going about it wrong. It's still a 'battle', but I can't have a 'swordfight' with a gun,"
"Pfft, semantics. What were we talking about again?"
"How guns are better than swords?"
Jeff nodded sagely, despite galloping, and being a horse. "Ah, yes. Guns are indeed better than swords."
I suspect I've been around Jeff for too long.
Anyway, nonsense conversation aside, we were rapidly growing closer to the sounds of conflict. The closer we got, the more of a story the sounds told. It sounded like many dozens of men against just a few, but the several dozens were getting their asses kicked. Screams of pain, anger, and amusement rang out into the crisp, midday air.
I broke through the treeline and observed the site of conflict.
It was quite a bit to take in. There was a carriage, decorated opulently, tipped over on the side of a very clearly man-made dirt road. A horde of dirty, leather-clad men and women were in the process of attacking said carriage but were being absolutely slaughtered by the carriage guards.
"This is such a cliche," remarked Jeff.
I knew what a cliche was due to Erudite, but I wasn't too sure what he was talking about. "How so?"
"Oh, Buckaroo, trust me when I say there is a minimum of one princess in that carriage."
"A princess? Reckon they have a lot of money?"
"Depends on the specific cliche we are invoking. Chances are good though."
I'm honestly not sure if he was fooling around or not, but the decorations on the carriage definitely implied heavy wealth. It was gold-trimmed for god's sake. I'd consider stepping in to help in hopes of payment, but it looked like they were doing fine.
The guards were split into two very distinct factions. One half of the group wore metal armor and generally used straight-edged swords of various sizes. Mixed in with that group were leather-wearing archers, and, for whatever reason, folk wearing hooded cloth robes and wielding staffs.
The other faction was wearing long, flowing robes, and fancy haircuts. They generally wielded rather ornate weapons. Curved swords, whips, fancy crescent spears, they had no uniform or even a consistent choice of weapon. Oddly enough, half of them looked way too old for sword fighting.
There was one thing that stood out to me the most, though. Impossible to avoid mentioning.
"All these people are mighty attractive, aren't they?" I observed.
"I can't tell. I'm a horse."
Yeah, fair enough. It was jarring, and I wasn't exaggerating. Pretty much all of the faces I could see looked like they were sculpted from marble, male or female, old or young. It made me genuinely uncomfortable, as if they were a bunch of dolls masquerading as humans.
I watched one of the aforementioned staff-wielding guards shoot fire from nowhere, and another shoot lighting. I supposed that was magic. The armor-wielding guards were charging through the bandits, cutting them into pieces with their rather large blades, and the bow-wielding archers were putting shots into vitals.
Meanwhile, the robe-lovers were practically dancing around their opponents, carving them to pieces with smooth and flowing movements, the long sleeves of the robes obscuring the arm until it was too late for the outmatched bandits. Some of them flew across the battlefield as if on strings, and others didn't even bother with weapons, somehow rupturing organs in a single strike.
They were clearly very good at what they did. Fortunately for me, they were all Bronze Core or below. Not quite sure how I could tell, but I'm long done questioning these sorts of things.
Jeff and I watched leisurely as they continued to fight. There seemed to be an endless supply of bandits willing to throw themselves into the blender of fire and steel. Why? The dumber the bastard, the more likely they are to run from a fight, yet these fools were pretty much throwing themselves onto the blades. There was something afoot here, and I didn't have the information needed to figure out what.
"Watch the carriage, you old fuck!" yelled one of the armor-wearing guards, as she literally cut through three people with one massive swing. She looked important, with shiny silver plate armor and helmet, plus several insignias hanging from the breastplate. Her older voice was an odd mix of rough and smooth, a cadence I've only heard from city-ladies turned desperado.
"Do you think me a fool? To forget my lady would be unimaginable foolishness!" echoed a robe-wearing old man. He too was tearing through bandits like afterthoughts, his blade held in a reverse grip as he carved elegant gashes through scores of bandits. Which was especially impressive, as he looked to be around 80 years old. I can only hope to be that spry at his age.
The wave of bandits was finally slowing down. There had to be damn near a hundred of them. It was extremely unlikely that they decided to commit suicide by senior of their own volition, more likey they were being controlled by some external force.
"I reckon they won't hire me" I mused.
"I dunno, aren't you a silvery big shot now? I still don't get how you jumped so many ranks."
It probably had to do with singlehandedly subjugating a town. There were only six, and I suspected four of them were still intact. Then again, what the hell do I know? Maybe I'm still at the bottom of the color-coded totem pole.
The guards finally finished off the rest of the bandits. Blood and broken bodies mixed with the dirt road, as the guards began to clean their weapons, check corpses, and generally wind down from the life-or-death battle they just took part in.
That was until the shiny-armor lady spotted me.
She gestured towards her backline and roared. "One's trying to get away! Stop him!"
Seriously? I cupped my hands to my mouth and yelled. "Do I look like I'm trying to escape, dumbass?"
The old man looked me over, and his eyes widened immediately. He turned to the lady and armor and yelled, voice tinged with worry. "Still your blades, fool!"
But it was too late. Arrows and fireballs were flying towards me. No blades, actually, which made me question his word choice.
From my perspective, they were moving in slow motion, presumably from the effects of deadeye. I had time to leisurely consider how best to deal with it. Judging from the old man's reaction, it wouldn't be too hard to clear up the misunderstanding, so there was no need for anyone to die. I could deal with the projectiles easily enough.
I had an intrinsic understanding of the sort of energy that went into this mystical bullshit. Call it a side-effect of the core, but I knew I could cancel out the fireballs by squashing them with an equal force. I simply drew my Walker, adjusted my energy output to exactly what I needed, and fired.
I fanned the hammer and blew the arrows out of the air, the blasts of energy acting like any other projectile. The shots I sent for the fireballs essentially...burst on impact, stifling the energy that formed the fireball, completely dispersing it.
I hit all 9 projectiles in roughly a second.
The armored lady looked quite surprised. I mean, I think she did, but she was wearing a full-face helmet.
The old-man ran towards me, all prior grace completely is forgotten. For a moment, I thought he was trying to enter sword-range, but the deranged look on his face bespoke of desperation as opposed to a threat.
He reached my side by the treeline and fell to his knees dramatically, as the other robed members of his posse looked away in embarrassment. Meanwhile, the armored lady attempted to disappear into the ground.
"Fellow Daoist, How did you reach silver-core already?!" pleaded the old man, a wild look in his eyes.
"I...killed a whole lot of people, I guess," I stammered, almost at a complete loss for words.
"I too have killed scores of man and beast, and yet I am only a Tier-3 Bronze Core, a mere shadow of my old self. There must be some unfathomable secret legacy you have stumbled upon! Have you happened to have fallen into any caves containing a pocket dimension lately? Any voices in your head speaking of your vast potential? Have you-"
"Quiet!" I shushed him
He looked insulted. "I may be a mere bronze core now, but the heavens-"
"I hear something!" I reiterated.
He finally shut up. It was true, I could hear something large coming through the forest, making a beeline towards our position. It took several more seconds for the old man and lady knight to react, both heads swiveling towards the direction of the noise, and a seconds delay for the rest of the guards.
It didn't so much stomp its way through the forest as propel itself, its movements erratic and impossible for feet to produce. It sounded like a mass of pure weight going straight through the trees. I quickly found that to be true.
It burst through the treeline. I struggle to describe it, but it was very red, fleshy, and looked like a worm with a gaping maw for a mouth. Oh, and it had hundreds of tiny legs holding up its body. I guess that actually makes it closer to a caterpillar, but it was so obscene that it didn't really matter.
"Carrier!" yelled the knight lady, and all hell broke loose.
