Ch179-Tailor Tinker (Patreon)

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Ch179-Tailor Tinker

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Sylver’s new body was nearly impossible to poison.

For starters, anything that entered his mouth and traveled down his throat was essentially incinerated. To be specific it was magically disassembled into its base components which would then be used to heal or build his flesh and muscle.

And aside from a small handful of poisons, that for reasons even Sylver didn’t understand affected undead, Sylver had purposely retained his liver’s functionality in the nameless organ that he had replaced it with.

It was roughly the size of Sylver’s fist, and handled everything blood-related, from oxygenating it, to filtering it, to producing the various hormones and chemicals he needed to maintain his body’s current appearance. Teeth, hair, fingernails, even scabs, and scars were handled by this little ball of condensed flesh.

This meant that when Sylver opened his eyes and should have felt as if someone had bashed his head in from how terrible his hangover was, he instead woke up feeling refreshed, and not even a little thirsty.

“So you learned how to heal,” Sylver said.

Sylver straightened out his body and rose to his feet the way someone would push a tipped-over statue upright. He opened his eyes just to make things easier for the people who needed to use their eyes to see to have something to focus on when talking to him.

Yeva was standing near the couch in the corner and was very gently healing Ciege’s and Salgok’s hangover away. Murdok was nowhere to be seen.

“You barely got a word in last night. How’s life been treating you Yeva?” Sylver asked as he walked over to the couch Spring was laying on.

Sylver grabbed the back of the passed-out shade’s head and purged the alcohol sloshing around inside of his shadowy body. Spring burped out a small cloud of steam before he sat up and made enough room for Sylver to sit down next to him.

“Other than Ben making everything around him float, I genuinely have nothing to complain about. The monster outbreak was terrifying and devastating, but Salgok and Murdok kept us safe,” Yeva said.

Sylver solidified his shadow in front of him and kicked his legs onto it. He then widened it, so Spring could do the same.

“Lola mentioned that yeah. From the way she described it, it was very fortunate Murdok was here,” Sylver said.

Murdok, Salgok’s elder brother, had coincidentally decided to visit the ex-innkeeper, and just so happened to be helping the dwarf in the smithy when the first wave of monsters broke through the walls and barrier and laid waste to the city.

There were a lot of such coincidences.

That all seemed to coincidentally occur to the people Sylver cared about.

Sylver had left out a couple of details when he was telling his tale last night, primarily how he found a way into another realm, and how he managed to return. He also refrained from explaining that he had gone into the other realm with a purpose, and instead made it sound as if he had simply slipped and miraculously fell into a functional portal.

He told them he was heading to the city near the Schlagen mountains but skimped out on telling them why. Murdok was the only one in the group that didn’t immediately grasp the unspoken rule not to try to force information out of Sylver, but he caught on quickly enough.

Apart from his accent being so thick when speaking Eirish that Sylver had to concentrate to understand him, Sylver liked the dwarf.

“From what I’ve been told, the monster outbreak occurred at the best time possible. If it was a week earlier, or later, there would have been casualties. Arda got lucky in the fact that there were 5 S rank parties inside the city at the same time, they alone wiped out half the invading monsters,” Yeva said, and even though her back was towards Sylver, he could hear the raised eyebrow in her voice.

“Did you find a tutor for Benjamin yet? The sooner he starts the better,” Sylver asked.

Yeva turned her head to look at him, and she had an expression on her face, that Sylver chose to ignore.

“I would offer to teach him, but my magic isn’t exactly compatible. Seeing that you’re able to animate golems and whatever that keycard thing enchantment was, you’ve perfected the exercises I gave you?” Sylver asked, and doubled down on changing the subject.

Yeva just stared at him, and waited, while she continued to heal the two passed-out men.

Soul magic was not exactly something the Ibis considered to be “magic.” Which in Sylver’s opinion was wrong, and the fact that he would have been considered the arch-soulmancer if they changed their classification, had nothing to do with it.

But, in the Ibis’ defense, soul magic was just a bit too “unique” to be considered magic.

Sylver’s method of controlling and casting with his soul couldn’t be more different from Aether’s, Oska’s, or Helca’s.

Oska couldn’t beat Sylver in a soul fight even if he was blindfolded and had both hands tied behind his back. But even with Sylver’s soul being significantly larger and stronger than Helca’s, she could outmaneuver him and hit him in a blind spot he didn’t even know about.

It was hard to explain, but the way a person wields a sword is different from the way they wield a warhammer or a shield.

Sylver had seen it mentioned in a grimoire he once found, that souls could be broken down into categories. And using a series of tests a soulmancer’s soul could be categorized as a sword, shield, battering ram, polearm, lance, spear, bow, hammer, and so on and so forth.

If the tests Sylver had performed on himself were to be believed, and assuming he hadn’t fucked them up, then his soul was a small blade, either a dagger and more fittingly, a scalpel. Nyx on the other hand was a two-handed battle-ax. Oska was an arrow, and Aether was an “unknown.”

To be more accurate, Aether failed 3 tests, and by the grimoire’s definition couldn’t be considered a mage capable of manipulating his soul.

Going by the way Sylver could feel Yeva had shaped her soul to heal her husband and Salgok, hers was some kind of armor piece, but Sylver couldn’t remember that section of the grimoire to be any more specific than that.

Certain types of death magic, those that targeted the soul directly, wouldn’t work on Yeva. If Sylver wanted to kill her, he would need to rely on physical attacks, crushing her heart, freezing her blood, heating her brainstem, that kind of thing.

“What were we talking about?” Sylver asked.

Yeva hadn’t said a word during Sylver’s silent trip down memory lane.

“You asked if she was done with the soul training exercises you left her,” Spring reminded.

“You said to stop if they started to hurt,” Yeva answered, as she stopped looking over her shoulder and turned her head back towards Ciege.

“Did they start to hurt?” Sylver asked.

“I couldn’t walk for a few minutes, lost all feeling in my legs. I gave Ms. Lola the book for safekeeping, and have been focusing on figuring out how to do it myself since then,” Yeva explained, as she finished healing the two, and stood up

“You’ve done well. Those golems outside, marvelous work. I think even I would struggle against them. Who built them?” Sylver asked.

“Murdok… Kind of. He’s a [War Smith], he designed two empty suits of armor, and I managed to stuff enough monster souls inside to bring them to life. One of Ms. Lola’s enchanters helped modify them. They have both a strength equivalent of a level 300 warrior. And with Salgok’s rune enchanted weapons, they’re quite formidable, even against higher leveled foes,” Yeva explained.

Sylver stood up from his seat and walked over to where Salgok and Ciege were sleeping. He placed a hand on either men’s foreheads and clicked his tongue. Yeva had done a great job healing their hangover, but they werne’t going to be waking up any time soon.

“I need to get going, but I’ll be back again, I need Salgok to build something for me. What about Ciege, everything all right with him?” Sylver asked, and Yeva made a very strange face.

Not quite a frown, but not quite a smile either.

“Ms. Lola has been pressuring him into accepting a title of nobility. But even though we’ve explained to her that we’re very comfortable where we are, she keeps coming over to talk about all the ways it would benefit Ben, or how much safer we would be if we weren’t living in a house surrounded by people,” Yeva explained, and Sylver vaguely remember Lola mentioning this.

Ciege too, last night, now that he thought about it.

“What are you doing for Ben’s higher education? I don’t mean to offend, but if he’s already formed a stable enough mana core for unconscious levitation, then it would be a waste to-”

“We’re very comfortable where we are,” Yeva said, politely, but at the same time, somewhat viciously.

“I see…” Sylver said.

During the silence, Yeva sat down near Ciege’s head and started to run her hand through his hair.

“I know you both mean well. But all we’ve ever wanted was a small and simple life. all of-” Yeva gestured around the large office with her hand, “-this, isn’t us,” Yeva said.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy and grateful for everything you’ve done for us, but I want Ben to grow up to be a silversmith, maybe a scholar. Shera thought her son was dead for 2 years, I don’t want to sit around worried that my son died on some adventure, or worse, got kidnapped for a ransom because his parents are nobles,” Yeva said.

“In my personal opinion, you’re making a mistake,” Sylver offered.

Yeva didn’t outright tell him to fuck off, but her polite smile said as much.

“But I understand where you’re coming from, so I’ll talk to Lola,” Sylver said, as he walked over to Spring, and helped the shade remove his left foot’s shoe.

“There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to have to spend every waking moment afraid of some grand conspiracy coming after you and your child,” Yeva said.

“I didn’t say there was… Look, Lola is an elf, their mannerism and expressions don’t translate well to humans like you. And given the fact that she’s using something to guard her soul, you tried to use the fact that you could read her to your advantage, right?” Sylver asked.

“No, but I nearly did. I gave it to her as a gift, so I didn’t feel tempted,” Yeva corrected.

Sylver couldn’t help but smile. He had been worried Lola had gotten the thing because of him.

“Either way, I know she can sound callous and uncaring, especially if you don’t know to look for the subtle signs. As far as elves go, Lola is quite emotive. Their faces aren’t as expressive as you’re used to, dwarves just straight up can’t even tell if they’re happy or sad unless they’re actively laughing or crying. Anyway, you made a decision, I don’t like it, but it’s your decision to make…” Sylver said, and tried not to sound defensive.

He took Spring’s sock off and summoned a small scalpel into his hand from his [Bound Bones] storage.

“I didn’t mean-”

“Everything is fine Yeva, I know what you meant. While I’m here, could I ask for a favor?” Sylver asked as he remembered an idea he had thought of last night and had nearly completely forgotten.

“As long as it doesn’t involve becoming nobility or moving house, anything,” Yeva said.

“There’s a girl living in my house. Chrysanthemum, Chrys for short. She’s… what’s a polite way of putting it… I’d like it if you went to check up on her every now and then so that if she ever has… womanly questions, she can ask you. Misha and Masha aren’t exactly “standard” human women, and while Maul and the other female rabbits are there, I’d like it if she had someone of her own race to talk to,” Sylver explained.

There was a pause. During which Sylver made a tiny incision underneath the toenail on Spring’s left foot’s big toe.

“She’s the one you rescued from that laboratory, and then somehow gave her a brand new body, right? I thought she was an elf?” Yeva asked.

“No, they called themselves elves, but they weren’t. She’s human, at least physically, with her being a clairvoyant, I can’t exactly speak to her mental state. She might not even need any advice, but I would feel better if she had that option,” Sylver said.

Yeva turned her head to look at Spring, who made a noise as he deflated, and left behind a loose pile of skin and clothing.

“I uh… Yes. Of course, I’ll take Ciege with me, we’ll introduce her to Ben. I’ve been meaning to ask Maul for her carrot bread recipe anyway,” Yeva said, as Sylver stored Spring’s skin suit away, and stood up from his crouch.

“Great, thank you. I’m going to take care of some business, and I’ll likely spend the rest of the day and night at Bruno’s in case anyone needs me,” Sylver explained, as he ran his hand down the edge of his robe to straighten it out, and then held out his hand for Yeva to teleport him out of the office.

***

“Are you sure, you’re sure?” Sylver silently tapped out, as Spring’s half returned from scouting, and merged with the half in Sylver’s shadow.

“I don’t know if the tattoos are painted on, but they have the same necklace as Sophia, and the robes look identical. You could always ask them,” Spring offered, as Sylver sent a tendril of fog down into the rain gutters.

Which for some reason were now connected to one another, to the point Sylver could travel from one end of the city to the other without once having to be out in the open.

Almost as if some sort of rich and powerful high-elf “suggested” that the architect guild do this while they were rebuilding Arda from the monster outbreak damage.

Sylver materialized in one of the few dark and grimy alleyways left in this rebuilt city. Apparently, the architect guild wasn’t all too fond of dark alleyways, on account of how often people were robbed in areas such as these. And in their defense, fair enough, even if it was a little annoying for Sylver.

Sylver had a myriad of plans to force the two followers out of hiding, but he went for something he hadn’t done for a long time.

He spun the umbrella hooked on his wrist around and lost his grip. It flew forwards, and bounced off the wall on the left, and landed with a splash in a puddle on the ground.

With a hand clutching at his heart, or where a human would normally have a heart, Sylver fell down to his knees and started to mutely gasp repeatedly, as if he was trying to breathe but couldn’t.

He did this for exactly 30 seconds before he allowed himself to fall face-first onto the oddly clean rocky floor. He lay still on the ground, with the blunt pebbles pressing up into his face, and after a couple of seconds, turned the liquid in his mouth froth, and used [Advanced Water Manipulation] to make it ooze out.

The fuckers waited an entire 2 minutes, and 50 seconds, Spring counted, before they teleported right above his possibly dead body.

“Sweet Ra have mercy, I can’t believe-”

“Are you two following me?” Sylver asked.

He turned over onto his back and stared up at the two priests standing over him.

Sylver tried to use [Arcane Insight] but all the skill told him was that they both had a lower level than him, nothing else.

“I told you! I told-”

Both of the priests' magics limply crackled, as the umbrella the shade crouching in the puddle behind Sylver canceled out their attempts at teleportation. The two priests couldn’t focus their eyes, as they tried again, and again, and again, to teleport away.

Sylver used his shadow to throw himself upwards and managed to grab the two by the throat with either hand. He lifted them off their feet and pressed them up against the wall, with two daggers floating eye level with each man’s eyes.

“Were you two following me?” Sylver asked, calmly, and politely.

He felt the priest on the left gather mana into his hands, and Sylver just short of crushed his throat in warning.

“Don’t make me ask a third time,” Sylver said, calmly, and politely, as the four daggers floated an inch closer towards the eye they were pointed at.

“The head priest-” Sylver pulled the man who had spoken away from the wall, close enough that the daggers touched his eyelashes, and slammed him back against it, so hard that the stone wall cracked from the force.

“Yes! We were following you, we were ordered-”

It happened so fast that Sylver could tell by their souls they didn’t even feel it until he let go of their throats.

Twin blades of [Necrotic Mutilation] slithered out of Sylver’s sleeves, and with the speed and force of a whip, cut through the left man’s right arm, and the right man’s left arm.

Before they fell, or so much as started to bleed, [Necrotic Mutilation] caught the two severed limbs, and made them disappear, as Sylver forced [Bound Bones] to accept the holy magic saturated arms into itself.

“I don’t care who you are, don’t ever follow me,” Sylver said, as he let go of the two throats he had been holding, and let the two short, compared to Sylver, men, drop down to the ground.

Sylver coated his hands in [Necrotic Mutilation] and formed a blunt ridge around where his knuckles were. As the two priests realized one of their arms was missing, they immediately tried to lift their remaining hands up towards the wound to heal them, and Sylver spoke while they focused on healing.

“Talk to Ging if you want to organize a meeting,” Sylver explained, as the two priests continued mutely healing their stump of an arm. Their eyes were panicked and wild, but they were so focused on healing that they seemed to be moments away from entering a tranquil zone of calmness.

Sylver punched the one on the left, so hard that his lower jaw tore away from his mouth, and flew into one of the dirty puddles on the floor. The priest started to scream with the kind of unsettling gurgling noise only a man with his tongue hanging out of his mouth and slapping against his throat could manage.

The other priest lost his concentration, and his gaze was initially fixated on the unintelligible priest splattering blood all over his nice white and red robe.

“Next time I find anyone following me, I won’t be as gentle,” Sylver explained to the only priest that still had a lower jaw.

He had pressed himself up against the wall as if he was about to start crawling upwards to get away from the situation.

Sylver snapped his fingers in front of the priest's face, and when that didn’t do anything, grabbed him by the jaw, and turned his head until he finally looked Sylver in the eye.

“Do you understand me?” Sylver asked. He felt the priest attempt a nod and he let go of his jaw.

As he turned his head back, to stare at the screaming jawless priest, Sylver punched him across the face, so hard that his lower jaw tore away from his mouth, and landed in the dirty puddle in the distance.

Sylver shoved the very recently un-jawed man towards the ground, and as he walked away from the two blood-covered, jawless, gargling priests, stepped onto both of their jaws with a sickening, tooth splattering, crunch.

***

As Sylver materialized outside the dungeon entrance, he heard himself making a clicking noise with each footstep. Upon inspection, he found that he had a molar stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Sylver used [Dead Dominion] to pull it out, and then floated it towards one of the garbage bins.

Sylver handed the guard his adventure’s badge, and the man gave Sylver a very odd look.

“You’ll need to have this updated,” the guard said, as he waved Sylver along.

Sylver nodded that he would, and entered the dungeon.

Lola had mentioned a “path” but Sylver thought she was being rhetorical, but there it was…

A path made out of threads, that were glowing bright enough that it was impossible to miss them.

As Sylver walked down the path, he lost count of the number of dormant barriers he passed through. Every single one felt powerful enough to keep Sylver at bay for days, and there were at least 50 layers of them.

And that’s not mentioning the thousands of tiny souls Sylver could feel following his every move above him, he felt as if he could make a perfect 3 dimensional model of the ceiling from how many there were.

Sylver did his best to ignore the ones hiding in holes underneath the thread path he was walking on, but he took extra care to make sure he didn’t step onto any of them. Sylver followed the thread path lower and lower into the dungeon. Someone had dug a tunnel, but it didn’t have the feeling of someone using earth magic.

The last hurdle to pass through was a serpent, that was coiled in such a way that it blocked up the only tunnel forward. Sylver just stood there, as the body began to slowly move, and opened up a gap just big enough for the “serpent” to push its head through.

It’s face was covered in scars, its left eye was white and blind, and its slightly open mouth demonstrated shark-like daggers for teeth.

[Royal Guardian – Venom Lord – 392]
[HP: 444,710 – 72%]
[MP: 0 – 0%]
[Stamina: 61,654 – 92%]
[Corpse – Inferior]
[Soul – None]

As the skill name suggested, it left out the information that wasn’t relevant, all the blanks or vague classes were ignored and only the things Sylver needed to know remained.

The serpent’s tongue flickered out of its mouth for a split second, while it continued to unblinkingly stare at Sylver.

It nodded at him, apparently satisfied with him, and then pulled its head back into the folds of its most likely enormous body. Rays of light shone through the gaps it gradually created until it got to the point that Sylver had to block the light out with his hand.

With the tunnel open, Sylver pressed on and found himself standing on a path laid out in small white stones, with a field of bright green grass on his left, and a field of golden wheat on his right. He looked ahead, and saw a very familiar house in the distance, with a seemingly endless field stretched out behind it.

Sylver looked upward and found the entire ceiling covered in multicolored hexagons. Sylver watched as a spider with a magical symbol carved into its carapace crawled out from one of these hexagons, and then watched as it crawled along the ceiling, and disappeared into a different hexagon.

A couple of these hexagons were glowing with a bright light, like the path inside the previous tunnel, and created the illusion of daylight.

At Spring’s suggestion, Sylver looked away and looked down, and saw a small girl wearing dark blue overalls staring at him. She had a very small spider sitting on top of her head, it was gold-colored, and the abdomen was spiky in such a way that it almost looked like a golden crown.

“Is Bruno home by any chance?” Sylver asked the little girl.

“He’s up in the hatchery. Wait inside the house, I’ll go get him,” the little girl ordered, and gestured towards the house standing in the distance.

She looked upwards for a moment and seemed to concentrate. Sylver somehow managed not to flinch as a giant dark brown spider landed on her back, and then using its thread lifted her high into the air. Sylver followed her with his eyes and watched as the spider pulled her into one of the hexagonal holes.

“Syl? Is that you?” someone asked.

Sylver looked towards the source of the sound and saw a small pudgy woman standing in the doorway of the house. She had a gold-colored spider on her head, but with a much bigger and spikier abdomen.

“Tera?” Sylver asked, and saw the expression on the woman’s face brighten up as if someone had just presented her with the best gift ever.

“Why am I asking, of course it’s you! Slinky wouldn’t have let anyone else in without asking first,” Tera said, as her form shimmered for a moment, and she appeared a mere inch away from Sylver.

Now that she was this close, Sylver realized she wasn’t fat, although she had gained weight, she was pregnant.

“Bruno will be back in a bit, but come inside, have some tea, I’m dying to hear where you’ve been for 5 years. Did anyone tell you about the farm?” Tera asked, as she practically dragged Sylver along with her.

“Tragedy, but from the ashes, and all that. If you ask me the ones we have now are even better, they’re not as fluffy as the originals were, but the originals had this odd smell about them, the current variants all smell like fresh grass. I’ll leave it to Bruno to give you the tour, did you get taller, did you by any chance bump into Leke on your way back?” Tera spat out, question after the question, as they passed the threshold of the house, and Sylver was sat down into a chair made out of a shiny material he couldn’t identify.

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