Origin A.R.S. (15 page)

She turned to look at him, her eyes shimmering softly. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing bad, I just think that you can do better than me.” He did not have much belief in his ability to properly handle relationships, especially one where he was supposed to be the answer to a sweet girl’s prayer. He could not even hold the interest of a stripper that he had dated for three years.

Rhea glared at him then launched herself toward Scott with all the fury that her frame could provide. He was quickly knocked to the ground. She stared down at him as she straddled his body. Her maidenly bosom heaved mightily and her eyes began to glimmer with the reflected light unspent tears. “I hate it when people lie to me.”

Scott was uncertain how to even respond to this sudden shift in her demeanor. All he could come up with was, “Do you really think that you can’t do better than me?”

She slapped him across the face then growled at him. “Don’t say stupid things! I’ve only known you a short time and you have already proven to be very kind and considerate!”

His eyebrows pressed together in confusion. “I have?”

Rhea nodded firmly then placed her hand to his cheek. The elf sighed softly. “You honestly do not know your own worth, do you?”

“No.” he responded in a simple and sincere tone. What was he really worth, anyway? No one had ever really given much of a damn about him, besides his parents and possibly his brother. Most of his life had been a carnival sideshow starring people who had lined up to take a steaming crap all over his dreams.

The hateful gaze softened and the innocent eyes returned once more. She ran her gloved fingers gently along his cheek. “Is it ok... If I help you find out?”

He could not bear the look of honest concern and innocence that she turned toward him. He looked away and closed his eyes. “You can if you like... But, what happens if we find out and it doesn’t amount to much?”

She gently grasped his chin and pulled his face back toward her. Rhea smiled at him, beatifically, more like an angel, an image of the divine, than an elf. “As if such a thing could possibly be true. I already know what kind of person you are.”

Geeze, this girl... Scott was trapped. Her eyes were like the pseudo-incandescent beams of an oncoming truck and he was but a mere opossum staring down the oncoming reality of inescapable fate. “If, you keep looking at me like that... I will need better knee guards.”

“Hmm, what do you mean?” She tilted her head to the side and looked down at him with a smile that was far too adorable for his own good.

“Nothing, I would just need better arrow protection for my knees...”

Her eyebrows pressed together and her mouth puckered cutely. “You are saying weird things again...”

Scott sighed softly. “No one gets me.”

She squinted at him, wondering exactly what he was talking about. What was all this business about arrows and knees, anyway? “I’d like to get you.”

The sorcerer tried to fight the flow of blood that rapidly raced toward his face, but he could not. He had not blushed this much in years. Didn’t she know what she was doing to him? This was entirely unfair. “I am not sure if getting me is a good thing.”

Rhea caressed his cheek with her thumb then slid down his body. When she stopped moving, she was lying atop him, granting the grace of a full body hug. “I’m pretty sure.”

Unable to resist the moment, Scott slowly raised his hands up then wrapped his arms around her. Rhea whimpered softly then snuggled against the man she believed had been granted to her as an answer to her prayers.

They remained there gently intertwined for quite some time. Scott was both elated and highly uncomfortable with the situation. Rhea was simply happy to be where she was.

Finally, Scott felt that he had to say something. “So, do you have any brothers or sisters?”

She sat up quickly then eyed him with a curious and somewhat annoyed expression. “Why do you want to know about my sisters?”

“Huh, I did ask about brothers or sisters...” said Scott.

Rhea made a soft throat clearing noise then nodded. “Yes, I do have a brother and three sisters.”

“Really? So, you were not lonely growing up then.” Scott could have understood her actions a bit of she had been an only child.

“No, I was not lonely growing up. My family is quite warm and friendly.”

“I’m not surprised.” replied Scott with a smirk.

She smacked him on the shoulder. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Scott smacked her on the lower back. “You’re a friendly sort of person.”

Rhea smacked his shoulder again. “You love it, admit it.”

Scott felt cheeky and slapped her on the rear, just to see how far she would take this lovey-dovey stuff. She gasped loudly then looked down at him with a surprised but happy expression.

“Maybe, a little.” said Scott.

She wiggled a little then repositioned herself so that her head was pressed to his chest. “Your heart is beating faster. I bet you love it more than you claim.”

“You can hear my heart beating through my armor.”

Rhea ran her fingers over his chest plate and smiled. “I can hear your heart beating anywhere...”

“I know you are supposed to have incredibly sharp hearing, but I doubt that you can hear my heart from anywhere in the world.”

She giggled softly in response then said. “If it’s your heart... I could even hear it if you were in another world altogether.”

Scott tilted his head up and looked at the back of her head. “There are other worlds?”

She flinched a little then rolled her head up to look him in the eye. “A few... like the underworld.”

“Oh, I see...” Scott had suspected for a moment that she had meant something like Earth.

The beautiful elf relaxed visibly and released a long, slow, sigh before snuggling against his chest plate once more. “This is so nice.”

The sorcerer stroked her lower back gently and she began to make happy little noises. Scott had to admit it to himself at least, this really was nice.

Rhea reached back and took one of his hands gently in hers the slid her fingers between his. She looked up at him again and smiled shyly. Scott squeezed her hand gently and her smile increased in both size and potency.

He smiled at her in kind and she looked down at his chest plate. Her face took on a bright red color for a moment before she leaned forward she pulled his hand to her and kissed him softly on the steel clad knuckle.

Unable to resist interjecting humor into the moment, Scott spoke up. “You do know that I punch rats in the ass with that hand, right?”

She looked at his face again and made a disgusted expression before saying, “Ewww.”

Scott laughed and she began to laugh as well. However, Rhea was not happy with the change of topic. She swatted Scott on the chest plate then cried out, “You ruined the moment you goof ball!”

“Did I?” He smirked at her.

“Yes! I was about to make mad and passionate love to you and you had to say that.”

He shrugged. “Go ahead, I won’t stop you. Just tell me when you’re done.”

She smacked his chest plate again and pouted at him. “Pass!”

The goofy sorcerer chuckled at her righteous feminine fury. “Fine, then I won’t kiss you on the hand like you wanted.”

Her pout became a devastating weapon of destruction upon hearing him say that. “No fair...”

Scott pulled his hands up to lightly clasp her face. She began to breath rapidly in and out, as though she were about to start hyper-ventilating. Her face grew red, and hot beneath his hands. Her eyes closed half-way and her lips widened in expectation. He pulled her gently forward and she went willingly. She was quite dismayed to discover his true intention, however. Instead of kissing her on her soft pink lips, he leaned forward and gently kissed her on the forehead.

“Scott...” she whispered softly. She forgot how annoyed she had been for spoiling the previous moment.

“Rhea.” he replied gently.

The elf girl clasps his wrists with her hands then pressed his arms back. They went all the way to the ground and she was now face to face with the one that she had prayed to have in her life.

“Don’t kiss me unless you mean it.”

He smiled at her. “Don’t smack me unless you mean it.”

She frowned then lightly slapped him on the face. She certainly meant it, too.

“Please mistress, may I have another?” asked Scott while delivering the cutest expression that he could muster.

“Yes, you may.” She slapped him again then laughed.

“So violent...” He grinned at her and she shook her head.

“What am I going to do with you?” She snorted then pouted at him.

“Buy me pretty things and tell me that I’m special?” Scott waggled his eyebrows suggestively and she barked out a surprised laugh. The nerve of this guy!

“You... Oh, you!”

“Yep, me. Are you still glad that you prayed for me?”

She tilted her head once to the left and then once to the right. She eyed him critically for a moment then rubbed her chin. “Do you kill spiders and do windows?”

“Sure.”

She squealed out in excitement then gave him another warm hug. “I shall keep you then.”

Scott closed his eyes and accepted her warm and tender embrace. He was not sure what would happen with them in the future, but this moment would certainly make a nice memory. He did not really have that many nice memories, and it was a good feeling to have a new one to cherish.

The subtle interplay of light and shadow, the scent of fresh green grass; these were things that many people might take for granted. Scott was not such a person. He spent every moment of his new life enjoying the sights and sounds of this strange world. In recent days he had enjoyed one sight, and one specific sound, more than many others.

Rhea laughed softly, musically. Her eyes seemed to dance and sparkle in the firelight. “You really did such a thing?”

Scott could not help but laugh as well. “Yeah, getting locked out of the barracks, while standing on a window ledge in my underwear, is one of the highlights of my military career.”

She laughed even louder then made a silly little snorting sound that caused her to place her hands to her face. She had laughed so hard that she had snorted, how undignified! Rhea could not help it, though. “How did you get back inside?”

“I had to wait a while. After what felt like forever, I slid around the ledge to the communal bathroom window and crawled back inside. Went to where I hid a screwdriver inside the janitor’s closet, and used it to pop open my door since all of the doors were ancient as crap.”

“Did you get caught?”

Scott shook his head. “How someone did not see me standing on the side of the building in my underwear will always remain a mystery.”

Rhea laughed again then clutched her stomach. It was a funny story, but not that funny. Scott wondered if she had ever really left her hometown before.

“Why would you even think to go out on that ledge? That was clever.”

He shrugged. “We used the ledges as emergency entrances. It was nothing to see a soldier crawling along the side of the barracks to get into his room through his open window. Someone locked themselves out of their room at least once or twice a week.”

She shook her head then giggled into her hands. “Soldiers must be more agile in your home country. I couldn’t imagine an average human soldier in this country doing that without falling off the building.”

Scott laughed. “No one fell in the few years I was stationed there, thankfully.”

He looked at her curiously. “How about you, anything silly happen in the last few centuries?”

She smiled then sighed softly. “No, I don’t really have any interesting stories.”

“I doubt that. You’ve been an interesting story since I first met you at the shrine.” said Scott.

Rhea gripped the end of her hair and drew a solid lock of it around to the front, then stroked it gently. Her cheeks took on a slightly reddened shade. “No... I’m kind of boring...”

Scott’s face began to heat up a little at the sight. The girl was too cute for her own good. It was hard to believe someone so shy and innocent could exist. “There’s nothing boring about you.”

“T-tell me more about you, OK?” she asked sweetly.

He smiled at her then nodded slowly. It was actually, sort of nice. He rarely had the chance to talk about himself with someone of the fairer sex. It usually developed into hearing his date or girlfriend tell him all her problems like he was some sort of therapist.

***

The forest home of the slimes; traditional hunting place for beginning adventurers who specialized in elemental magic, it was a surprisingly normal looking place. Scott looked around excitedly, but saw no sign of the rumored creature that was known to be the staple of many old school role-playing games.

It took quite a while before they actually found a slime to hunt. However, once they did find one Scott was introduced to an interesting phenomenon.

Rhea called out, “Watch carefully!”

Scott did as she asked, and the girl raced forward to attack the slime with her sword. A hint of electrical current sparked along the edge of her blade. She struck outward with a single powerful slash that neatly slid through the transparent spherical mass at the center of the oozing creature’s body. A bright red number six rose up from the body of the slime and it separated into two twin parts.

She quickly hopped back then returned to Scott’s side. “Watch what happens.”

They looked at the two halves of the bisected slime. Scott watched the two halves begin to jiggle a little. After about a minute a bright green number three rose up above both halves of the formerly singular slime, and the newly regenerated slimes started to move around. One slime had become two.

“That’s pretty neat!”

“Isn’t it? The slimes in this part of the forest are weak, but if you split them up like this you can increase their numbers.”

The sorcerer looked at the randomly moving creatures and noticed that they seemed a little confused. He had no point of reference for their behavior, but they still seemed a little out of it.

“You need to cut completely through their nucleus in one strike, and use an elementally enhanced blade to make this work.”

“Why is that?”

“Well if you cut the nucleus in half, you can form two new slimes. The lightning magic causes the nucleus to fire and speeds up the growth process a little.”

Scott looked at the slimes as they wobbled and gooshed around erratically. After about a minute another set of green number threes rose up above them and they stopped moving in their formerly chaotic manner. Immediately they started to slide toward the human and elf intruding into their territory.

Rhea pointed at the slime on the left. “I’ll try to split that one. You can try the right one since I already cast lightning magic on you.”

“Sounds good!” said Scott.

They raced off toward the slimes and set about trying to split them once more. Rhea did so easily, but Scott needed to stab and slash at his slime a few times to coax it into splitting. This was partially due to his smaller blade, partially due to his inexperience with the process.

The two slimes became four. The four slimes became eight. In time the eight slimes became sixteen. It was at that point that they changed their tactics. Rhea and Scott ran around in circles to get the attention of the low-level monsters and led them to a point where they had all clustered closely together.

“Freeze!” exclaimed Scott. A wave of magical energy shot from his palm, rapidly cooling the slimes. Unlike the physical attacks, the pure magical assault did a lot of damage to the oozing beasts. Still, the sheer number of slimes forced him to use his spell twice.

Each cast was enough to kill an individual slime, and since they were so closely aligned they all died after the second cast. They were practically immune to normal physical attacks, but magic destroyed the slime nucleus easily. 

“Good job!” said Rhea. Sixteen slimes defeated in such a manner was a fair bit of hunting.

Victory music began to play and a screen popped up to show them their rewards.

<<< Victory! >>>

You have defeated sixteen slimes! Using a simple but effective method you have found a way to turn one slime into a horde of monsters. Since you have just learned this new technique, you will receive a one-time bonus.

+23 EXP

+48 Fayth

+16 Ability Points

Item(s) Acquired:

Small Slime core X 16

Slime Essence 16

Tiny Aquamarine X 2

Bonus:

+16 EXP

<<<*>>>

“Neat, a slime is worth a lot more Fayth than a grass rat.” said Scott.

“Yes! What I’m excited about are the two aquamarines, though.” said Rhea.

“The aquamarines?” asked Scott.

She nodded at him. “Yes, it is considered a rare find even if they aren’t actually rare gemstones. You can mine them or find them in certain areas. Some monsters drop gems as well. Slimes in this area will drop them on rare occasion. These slimes can drop aquamarines or pearls.”

“Is there something special about gemstones?”

Rhea smiled. “Well, they are useful for some magical applications such as enchanting. They are also used in jewelry or as donations at the temples of certain gods. I like them because they are worth a lot of Fayth.”

“A lot of Fayth, how much?” Now she had his full attention!

She placed a finger to her chin. “These are tiny so probably only a few hundred Fayth. You can’t expect much from level one monsters, you know.”

Scott understood now. People probably hunted these poor slimes like crazy. He had learned that hunting in the same area frequently would cause the monster population to drop. The respawn rate slowed greatly. It was the reason that rabbits were less common that grass rats. Rabbits gave more experience and they had tastier meat. Though, even the grass rats only swarmed if you pissed them off. They were quite timid if they faced someone several levels higher than they were.

“Thank you for showing me that trick for hunting slimes.” said the sorcerer.

Rhea punched him gently on the arm. “Hey, we’re comrades, right? Teaching you a thing or two is important.”

“Oh yes, fill me with your wisdom.” said Scott, before laughing softly.

She smirked at him then pulled out a cloth to clean her sword off. There was surprisingly little goo on her blade, but she did not want to sheathe her sword without cleaning the remainder from its surface.

“I almost feel bad for the slimes, though.”

She looked at him, a curious expression on her face. “Why is that?”

“I don’t know. It feels wrong to overhunt monsters. Don’t they serve a natural function in this world?” Every animal in the world was considered to be a monster of some sort.

Her face lit up then she clasped his gauntlet clad hands. “Yes, they do.”

Scott did not know why she seemed to be so happy that he had said such a thing, but he was not going to spoil the moment. The sheer joy in her expression was enough to make his heart skip a beat.

“It’s fine and necessary to hunt monsters... But, overhunting can cause problems for the environment. Slimes keep the water pure, for instance.”

“Really? So, is there a lot of water standing around in this forest?”

“Not really. At least, not as far as I can tell. There used to be, but that area is a stagnant swamp now, due to overhunting the slimes.”

The sorcerer frowned. Now he felt bad about hunting the slimes. It was like he was contributing to the destruction of the forest.

Rhea smiled at him then placed her hand on his shoulder. “It’s ok. The respawn rate is already as low as it can go, I think. So, it’s not like the swamp will get much bigger. There just won’t be as many slimes as there could be in this part of the world.”

“I guess so... Is that how it works?”

“Yes, if you hunt monsters a lot the spawn rate of that monster species goes down in that area. Other species might increase though, if they aren’t hunted.”

“Ah, so that’s why there are usually fewer monsters near towns and villages?”

“Exactly! Constant hunting keeps the monster levels low and it also reduces the spawn rate. It is actually necessary for civilization to exist.”

“Are we likely to find stronger slimes farther into the forest?” asked Scott suddenly.

“Not really. This entire zone is low level. I would be surprised if you found a single monster higher than level four.”

“Zone?”

She stared at him for a moment, uncertain of what he was asking. “Yes, zone. You know, the Victory Station Zone?”

“Uhm...”

“You honestly don’t know what a zone is?”

Scott winced then shook his head. Rhea squinted at him then pulled up a map screen.

She pointed at their location on the map then showed him the squiggly lines surrounding the area. “These lines are zone boundaries. When you leave a zone you will be told that you are entering a new area. Different zones have different locations and geographical markers.”

“Really? So, what is this zone considered?”

“This is a town zone. So, that means weaker monsters within about three day’s travel from town. There are forest, and grass land areas here.”

She waved off his incoming questions and tapped another area that was adjacent to their current zone. “This is a savannah zone. There is no town there. I think it’s about a week’s worth of walking to get from one side to the other.”

“You’ve been there?”

“Yes, I’ve traveled to about thirty zones. Most adventurers travel through several hundred within the course of a few years. The zone I am pointing at right now typically has monsters that range from level two to six.”

“Because it is still close to a town?”

She nodded at him. “Yes, exactly. The farther you go from a town zone, the stronger the monsters become. Be careful, though. Once you go a certain distance from a town, the level differences can vary a great deal.”

“How much?”

She rubbed her chin for a moment then tapped an area four zones to the northwest. “If you walk, it will take several weeks to get there. The monsters tend to be around level thirty to fifty. However, this mountain area adjacent to it is known for having level eighty and higher monsters. Right below that zone, the grassland area just to the south has level twelve to fifteen monsters.”