The Party Grows

The boy's mind was clouded with rage, sorrow and longing as he lunged at the old woman. A flurry of thoughts flew across his mind at that moment.

Why did it have to be this way?

What's happened to the others?

My whole life has been a lie?

He gripped her neck hard and lifted her up off the ground once more, and in a few steps, he was standing right before the snapped door frame; with one fluid motion, he had shoved the old woman down onto the door frame.

With a violent shudder, the broken end of the frame that pointed upward had pierced through the old woman's left side. Her left lung pierced and started bleeding on the old woman's body.

Her piercing howls rang through the empty building, but they fell on the boy's deaf ears. The action had brought a sense of satisfaction in the boy that mixed wonderfully with the rage that had been brewing in him.

He stood over her broken body, stuck with a massive piece of wood skewering her to the spot. The last of her energy left her body and as she breathed in quick, shallow breaths that did nothing to alleviate that sick feeling of asphyxiation, she glanced up through her tears and sweat at the shadowed face of the boy.

The pain and the loss of blood made her vision blurry and she lost track of where his face was. She struggled to stay awake. She only had one option left, and that was to beg for the boy's mercy.

The old woman opened her mouth to beg, but barely a croak managed to escape her lips.

The boy hushed her as he squatted down and brought himself to her eye level, though the old woman still struggled to focus. She was exhausted and started to fall asleep, but a sharp storm of pain brought her back to full consciousness. The boy had pressed his palm near the area of her wound. He was torturing her.

"Please…" a weak voice came from the old woman, blocked by bile and mucus, it croaked quietly, "you don't have to do this. Mercy…"

The boy's face was still shadowed in the dark room, the sole source of light — a candle — sat on a counter on the opposite side behind him.

The old woman peered back up to look into that shadow, "I'll tell you everything you want to know—" she screamed as he pressed harder against her wound, her blood oozing out at an alarming rate.

The blood ran down onto the boy's left hand, and through the reflection of the moonlight and some candlelight bouncing off the liquid, the old woman watched in horror as the boy's left hand came alive and disfigured.

It looked like the left hand — no, the left arm — became sentient and seemed to be absorbing her blood. Not just from what bled out, but as the boy placed the cold palm of his hand near the site of her impalement, she could feel the odd sensation of her blood being sucked out.

The old woman screamed as the cold sensation from the ends of her limbs spread quickly to that point of contact between her and the boy. The scream sounded worse than her previous pleading voice as she realised that one second her throat was blocked by bile and mucus, and the next, it was completely dry.

Her last words felt like she destroyed her vocal cords, "what are you, Ryuu?"

A voice that sounded like it couldn't have come from human means resonated deep in her head and the pits of her stomach as the boy she once knew spoke words that sent chills up to the point of her death.

"I'm afraid Ryuu's not available right now."

***

There was a ringing in my head and a splitting headache that almost made me vomit when I shot up in bed, completely covered in a thick layer of sweat. The nightmare was so vivid and confronting, that for a split second I thought of seeing if Saizo was still up and telling him about it.

But then there was a wave of peace and calm that spread throughout my body from my arm that felt like a cold breeze. I looked down at it as I clenched and unclenched my fist when I could hear a muffled conversation.

There were three voices and they came from out in the hallway near the entrance to Saizo's room. With a little bit of difficulty, I made my way sneakily across my room and pressed my ear to my door. A small, annoying Message Window stated that my 'Sneaking' skill had levelled up and I quickly swiped it away and focused on trying to listen in on the conversation.

It was still too muffled, so I slowly and painstakingly opened my door to the tiniest crack and the conversation became more intelligible to me.

It sounded like they were standing at the door to Saizo's room and since his room was right next to mine, I could only listen in on their conversation without risking any of them knowing. From what I could hear, it seemed like Nato and Mobito were not happy.

"It's not bad enough that you accepted the Crimson Tower, but you want us to travel with the cripple kid?" Nato's gruff voice said in barely hushed tones. I could hear the bar downstairs still loud and active, so they must be discussing this 'quietly' because I had gone to bed.

"The Crimson Tower isn't too bad as a Quest, it's just this particular one is situated in a pretty bad spot." Nato's calm and logical voice explained. I had never heard him speak before, so the tone of his voice surprised me.

"I know it's not the best, but he's not a cripple anymore Nato, I told you that already." Saizo's slightly apologetic tone chimed in.

"You know this as much as we do, but there ain't no healing item that is that powerful as a Quest reward. He's either lying about how good his arm is, or he's hiding something." Nato growled louder.

"You don't mean that," Saizo said.

"How do we know that he's trustworthy? What if this is all a con, and he's just waiting for the right moment to strike when our guards are down?" Nato continued.

I gulped at that comment and held my breath. Never underestimate the gut feeling of a criminal.

"No, it's not like that! He's not like…us." Saizo growled. There was a pause as he realised the weight of what he was saying, "we may have cheated every now and then to get where we are now, but Ryuu is not like that."

For a split second, my determination to fulfilling my plan wavered. Only for a split second.

"Well, I'm not going to trust the cripple kid," Nato started, "when we arrived at Ohda, it seemed like Aoi's body had been found. Just a few hours after you two left."

"Oh?" Saizo murmured.

"Seemed like fire was an accident," Nato continued, "but it don't make sense since Aoi is — was — so careful. You grew up with her so you knew what she was like."

My ears pricked up at this. Saizo knew her personally? I always thought that he knew of her because of the orphanage.

"Yeah, but she got old — we all got old, and you heard about her health problems, and that nearly all the children at the orphanage were adopted. She needed their help to run that place, hell, even Ryuu helped out and his arm was screwed up!" Saizo justified.

"It is weird that he was perfectly fine and normal when the orphanage was burnt to the ground." Mobito joined.

"I told you already, he had just come out of the dungeon for his Solo Quest! It's a solid alibi." Saizo defended me.

"That nobody can verify," Mobito said in a grave tone.

"What? And you think he murdered Aoi?" Saizo asked incredulously, "why would he have any reason to do that?"

There was a slight pause of silence before Nato spoke out, "I just don't trust him, that's all."

It sounded like Mobito sighed, "look, we'll take you at your word about the kid, it's obvious that you care about him and see the best in him, and as our colleague, we'll trust you —"

"I ain't gonna—" Nato started.

"But like everybody else that joins us on a one-off, they have to gain our trust," Mobito cut his colleague off, "we'll treat this like any other job. If you say the kid won't be a hindrance, then we'll see. Before we head off, we'll teach him some self-defence techniques, 'cause we're not going to babysit him."

"Thank you Mobito," Saizo said.

"Don't thank me yet. If he fails to pick up our techniques, we're leaving him here. I don't care about him, crippled or not. I'm only being this accommodating because of my history with you, old friend." Mobito said.

"I appreciate it," Saizo acknowledged, "and I promise, it'll just be for this one Quest."

***

The meeting in the morning was extremely tense. I knew the truth of who Saizo's two colleagues were, while they had their suspicions of me. But like what I heard in the conversation I eavesdropped on last night, the two adventurers were on their best behaviour.

As a group, we had a quick breakfast and prepared for our journey to the Crimson Tower.

We made sure to pack enough supplies to last us for the round trip to the Crimson Tower, around four days' worth.

On the way out of Shinobu City, the two men decided to stop at a clearing to teach me a few things to protect myself.

"Have you got any protective spells that you could use just in case we get into some trouble?" Nato asked me.

"Protective Spells?" I asked with a blank face. This was the first time I heard about protective spells.

"What, not even 'Shield'?" Mobito butted in.

I looked at Mobito and then at Nato before looking at Saizo.

"Gods, you didn't even teach the kid about protective spells?" Nato whined at his friend.

Saizo looked extremely uncomfortable, "I'm sorry, it completely slipped my mind.

Nato grumbled a curse under his breath then said to Mobito, "give him the scroll. I'm glad we thought about it."

Mobito sneered, grabbed something out of his personal Inventory, and tossed it at me without a care in the world. A Window popped up in front of me when I caught the parchment.

[PROTECTIVE SPELL SCROLL "SHIELD LVL 1" HAS BEEN RECEIVED.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO LEARN THE SPELL?

YES || NO]

I accepted the prompt before the scroll burnt up into nothingness and nothing happened. I looked at my empty hand where the scroll had been then at the men waiting around me.

"Is that supposed to happen?" I asked.

"Yeah," Saizo answered, "try and look at your Status Window. There should be a Spells tab now."

I swiped my hand and took a look. There was a new Spells tab that appeared in my Status Window, however, when I pressed it to take a look at its content, a blaring red message greeted my eyes:

[DUE TO LIMITATIONS ON ITEM: {REDACTED}LEFT ARM OF THE ████████████{/REDACTED}, USER CAN NOT UTILISE MAGIC SKILLS]

The men saw my widened eyes and asked me if something was wrong. I gave the party permission to look at my Spells tab and they all looked at me in shock.

Nato cursed while Mobito and Saizo watched my reaction.

"What item is it talking about?" Mobito asked, studying my reaction as he did.

The pressure to act like I was as uninformed as them was surprisingly manageable, "I have no idea," I started with a soft, trembling voice, "it just says that it's redacted for me."

To top it off, I looked up at Saizo with what felt like questioning eyes. Saizo sighed and looked at his two colleagues, "I guess he can't do any magic."

"Gods, this can't get any worse," growled Nato who threw his hands up in the air in frustration, "hey kid, have you got any useful Physical skills at least?"

He swiped on a Screen on his end, and scoffed, "you've got some pretty okay levels in hunting skills I guess, and a pretty high proficiency level with a dagger. I guess you've had to use that a lot recently?"

I swiped and took a look at the Skills tab in my Status Window, and as the man said, it listed several Hunting Skills as well as a near-max proficiency with the Dagger weapon class. I unsheathed my Hunting Knife, "I had to use my Hunting Knife a lot in the Solo Dungeon."

"A Hunting Knife is a Dagger-class weapon," Saizo said to the other two men.

Mobito looked like he was in deep thought before he spoke up, "what mobs did you go against in the Dungeon?"

"It was just a simple Goblin Dungeon."

"Wave-based?" Saizo joined.

I nodded.

"I can't see how a cripple could have survived that." Nato scoffed and I glared at him.

"It was only a Goblin Dungeon, he could have been lucky." Mobito surprisingly defended me.

"I was very lucky," I agreed, "and I don't know how to explain it, but I basically moved on instinct, just to survive, you know?"

Saizo nudged me in the arm, "what did I tell you? He's not some useless brat, he's a full-fledged survivor."

"I wanna try something," Mobito motioned for me to follow him a bit further into the clearing.

***

What followed was about half a day's worth of Mobito teaching me some simple hand-to-hand combat moves and drills. I managed to pick it up extremely quickly, quick enough to surprise my teacher.

At the end of a series of drills that were designed to imprint muscle memory into movements, Mobito suggested that I spar with him.

We stood about a metre and a half away from each other and he said, "are you ready?"

I nodded, and we both entered a neutral fighting stance.

"Remember, all that you've learnt are defensive moves. On this journey, the adults will handle most of the fighting, but to be able to fight properly, we need to trust that you can protect yourself, okay?"

"Yep—"

As soon as I started to reply, Mobito slid closer to me and entered an aggressive fighting stance and rounded his back leg for a low kick to try and knock me off balance.

On instinct, I lifted my front leg out of the way and stepped back, while Mobito continued to keep his close distance by stepping forward and throwing a jab at my face.

A Window popped up at the corner of my vision and before my mind could comprehend the Message, I had brought my arm up and redirected the jab away from my face and lunged to throw a jab of my own.

Mobito calmly ducked away from the jab and took a step back, creating a little bit of space for both of us to breathe for a moment.

My eyes quickly flitted to the Window and saw:

[DUE TO EFFECTS OF ITEM: {REDACTED}LEFT ARM OF THE ████████████{/REDACTED}, USER HAS MASTERED "PJANIC SELF-DEFENCE TECHNIQUES — BEGINNER".]

I was still sharing my Status Window with the party and sent them the Window message. Nato was confused and seemed slightly angry at it, while Saizo cheered me on. I looked at Mobito, and he had cocked his head slightly to the right and motioned for me to come at him. A smile of confidence was firmly on his face as he did so.

I wanted to take that grin off the man's damn face. I lunged at him with a speed that took him slightly by surprise. He raised his hands into a defensive stance as I threw a slightly complicated series of jabs and swings at him according to the drills that I had been taught only a few moments ago.

This particular series of movements were considered to be the most complicated in the Beginner Pjanic Self Defence martial art, and even though I performed the movements to perfection, Mobito managed to block and protect himself from every single attack.

He then moved into counterattack with the same series of movements. This was to test my defensive capabilities. Of course, like what the Message had told me, I was able to also stop all of his advances.

In a sly movement, he used both his palms to drive my hands up and away from my body, breaking my defensive stance and I could only watch in helplessness as he quickly brought his hands back close towards his body and throw a short but powerful punch right at my torso.

Instinctively, I managed to bring a knee up to my chest, right in the way of his punch and successfully blocked the attack. The force of the punch was absorbed and forced the leg back behind me. I forced the leg down onto the ground to prevent myself from falling over and pain throbbed from my knee.

Mobito returned back to a defensive stance and then relaxed, "that's enough I think." He turned to Nato and Saizo, "what do you guys think?"

I relaxed and looked at the other two. Nato scoffed and said, "I guess that was okay."

Saizo looked at him in disbelief, "okay? That was incredible!"

"I agree," Mobito said, directing my attention back to him. He started to make his way over to the other men, while he nursed his knuckles.

"Yeah?" I asked. I swiped and saw on my Status Window that a tiny portion of my HP had gone in the spar. Not enough for me to have to bandage or take any of the HP elixirs Saizo made me buy. It was just my knee, and even now the throbbing started to dissipate.

"Like the Message that you shared with us said, you've managed to master everything that I taught you in such a short amount of time, and you were able to perform them flawlessly," Mobito explained as he took out a leather canteen from his Inventory, "and to top it off, you even managed to block my punch right at the end, which was fascinating."

He took a big gulp of water from the canteen, "I'm guessing that was the same instinct that helped you out in the Goblin Dungeon?"

"Yeah," I said.

Mobito took another gulp before he secured the cap on the canteen and placed it back into his Inventory, "Gods, I wish I had that natural fighting instinct when I was your age. I would have been able to get out of more fights injury free."

I thanked him for the lesson.

Saizo spoke up next, "now, are you guys finally happy? Can we start making our way towards the Crimson Tower?"

Mobito grabbed a small bandage from his Inventory and started to wrap it around his knuckles, "I think he's going to be fine, as long as we don't run into any cultists along the way."

"If Mobito says he's fine, then I think he's fine," Nato mumbled.

"Great!" Saizo exclaimed and gave me another nudge as I grabbed my own canteen from my Inventory. I hydrated and after I placed my canteen back into my Inventory, I noticed my knee was a bit dirty.

I rubbed my knee clean and a Window that I'd seen once before popped up in front of me appeared once again. I looked over at Mobito who finished wrapping his knuckles in a bandage. There must have been some surface-level damage from my knee block because the Message in front of me said:

[ALERT!

BLOOD SACRIFICE VICTIM ACCEPTED!

BLOOD SACRIFICE STATUS TILL COMPLETION: 33% (+)]