Chương 166: Chapter 162

Wade stared at the rewards. The critical leveling upgrade for quests. One of the main things he'd been hoping for. He'd been getting plowed with quests left and right from the System already, more than he could keep track of himself without a quest log. And that was probably going to keep happening in the future. Getting that upgrade would mean all these quests would be worth experience enough to get him up the levels again. Keeping hold of Fort Wade had now turned into a mission critical object.

Leon whistled next to him.

"Is very good real estate deal you taking. Illy going to be mad when I outlevel her."

"I'm sure she'll figure out how to catch up real fast herself." Wade said, still re-reading the quest. But a slightly hoarse pitched voice from across the crater sounded out, from the lead arcanaught.

"You two are a long way from home, gentlemen." It wasn't demonic, more similar to the moonwing elvish Selena spoke in, minus any kind of physical aspects or body language. It was all tone and word choice, of which the man sounded very clearly snooty, upset, and almost… british to the senses. There was a cough, and then the arcanaught ahead continued.

"This territory belongs to the council of Merced, and I see no identifying marks that you belong to Merced. I would advise you to depart with all due haste."

"Is that... a dialect of elvish?" Wade asked, mostly to himself. Market's blessing told him what it meant, but it did not tell him what the language was.

"Oh, this is bad." Medy said over the phone.

"That's High Elven. Merced is part of the wine mafia too, so double bad." She paused, as if thinking further about how to help.

"Mafia? Ma-fi-a. Wow, you guys have a name for that in english? Why would you ne- no, wait, it's close but not exa-" Perhaps 'help' was a little too kind.

"Medy." Bael said.

"Focus."

"Right, uh, high elv-""I suggest, strongly, that you both turn around or else there will be violence, of which I assure you, the numbers are not in your favor." The high elf at the center of the formation called out, the voice regal.

"One is less than four, in case you require assistance on mathematics."

"All right!" Wade called back.

"Not really here for the lake or anything, you can keep this all, we're just here for our chest." He found his own elvish to sound rather plain old american to his senses. More commoner than anything. Huh. Or maybe Market's blessing always made his voice sound the same to him in any language?

"Your human knows of this mithril anomaly?" The elf asked, waving a hand over to Leon. Wade ran a quick identify over all of the gathered arcanaughts here while he decided how much of his foot he was going to shove in his mouth today. Four of the targets were greater demonic essence, which was code for 'normal sentient demons'. All of them were above level twenty, although only two hit level twenty eight at the highest. Which was oddly low level.

But paradoxically, the weakest member of the other side was the leader: Level 14 High Elf - 100% Wade squinted trying to see who it was. The features were hard to tell from this distance within the silver dome helmet obscuring some of it, but it almost looked like a young boy. The short hair looked to be tied up behind, showing two long ears, and a very angular looking face. Similar to Selena, except no signs of makeup nor feathers.

"He not very strong is he?" Leon said, looking over the leader.

"He doesn't need to be. He's the warlock." Bael said over the phone.

"He's there to give demons commands they can't ignore." Wade gave the Elf a deeper look.

"He does seem a li-" But the High Elf ahead cut in before Wade could get more out.

"I asked you and your master a question. What is this mithril anomaly? There are no signs of heat being generated despite the material composition, and it cannot be opened nor moved." He pulled a blade and aiming the tip right at Wade.

"Do not test me further demon. Translate for the monkey or you will be returned to whence you came from with your name conveniently forgotten."

"Demon?" Wade looked confused for a moment before realizing he'd been talking with Bael, which meant demonic. Medy liked to speak english, Bael kept it traditional.

"Oh. He thinks I'm a demon?"

"The days when Warlocks were the ones that had to learn how to speak demonic are long behind." Bael said, with a snort.

"And I doubt he'd even suspect your little metal tablet can be spoken to. If you are the one who speaks demonic, then that means your ally is the mortal among the two of you. And you speaking for the human is rather expected." Leon took a few steps ahead of the ground, then waved a hand out.

"Da, apologies for my demon, I am human in charge of research expedition." The elf paused for a moment.

"How unexpectedly academic for a monkey to be fluent, consider me impressed. Nevertheless, what are you doing within Merced lands? And explain this chest you've come for. Immediately." Wade frowned, while Leon negotiated.

"Second time he's saying that, does he mean humans?"

"Yep." Zin said.

"Are high elves all like this or just him?"

"High elves." Medy answered that one.

"All of them." Bael added.

"By their nature." Meanwhile Leon was attempting his best.

"We doing experiment on possible material science directions with adamantine. Mithril chest here coated with adamantine test oil, and containing only papers showing if mana permeation happened or not, and how much if so. We coming here to pick up when we hearing the flooding come."

"Oh, that's clever." Wade said in english, "Quick thinking Leon." Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"Honors student, remember?" He winked back.

"And its inability to move or be opened?" The Elf asked.

"There are no signs of locking spells on the chest, quite peculiar."

"Oh, we glue it shut and to bottom of lake." Leon laughed, making it up as he went.

"See, is important chest not move. Garbage data, we narrow variables down. If skeletons strong enough to move it, worried something else causing issues too." The Elf did look like he was reconsidering the action. Wade could tell fighting down here was always going to end as a math problem, a danger to reward ratio that was very skewed on the danger part. A single rip in these suits and someone died.

While that was fine for the four demons, the elf at the center of the formation very much didn't have another life to burn through. So was it worth picking a fight for what would end up being a worthless science experiment by a random yokel human running around in an area that wasn't claimed?

"Where is the rest of your research expedition, and which guild has sponsored you?" He asked, which meant that yes, it was possibly worthwhile but he wanted to be certain.

"Oo suka." Leon hissed under his breath, but looked up and did his best to bullshit.

"Am not with any guild. Research err, not approved for funding. Is a little embarrassing, but I believe in my idea enough to use own funds for this." The Elf tutted.

"Very well, you will open your chest here before me in order to verify your story. If all we find is your testing papers within it, I may let you depart."

"Yeah he doesn't completely believe you." Medy said.

"Not a lot of crazy people get enough coin to hire a freelance captain."

"Eh, I tried." Leon shrugged his shoulders. He was attempting to bullshit his way through completely unknown rules with their first high elf.

"What is plan B?"

"Shoot them." Wade said.

"…You have better plan?"

"Sure. Shoot them and don't miss." Wade could feel Leon's raised eyebrow without even looking back at the man.

"All right, all right, buy me, like, one minute to come up with something to make sure we don't get nicked in the fight." Leon wasn't great at using mana, which meant he couldn't power his system-given hammer, but then again the enemies up ahead also couldn't power their swords either. Not with the suits blocking the path between hand and hilt. Magic down here was paradoxically difficult to pull out. The real problem was that Leon also couldn't power the suit's enchanted defenses either.

At least, not without stopping in place to really focus on it. Wade could, he'd put points into intelligence to the point he had enough instincts to keep it all powered. So in order of priority, Eri could tank any hit, Wade could take a few hits, and Leon absolutely shouldn't be anywhere near the frontlines. A single cut in the arcanaught suit and he was toast.

"Okey, okey, we playing safe." The Russian said in english, then turned up to the High Elf and spoke elvish.

"I go get solvent to undo glue setup, is in wagon here. Give minute or two to set up."

"No, you will stand aside from your cargo, and explain the steps required instead." The Elf said, which was a rather annoying but a smart precaution. Wade looked over to the Russian with a side eye.

"I don't think he trusts you."

"What? He clearly make mistake. Am very trustworthy. By the way, how goes our plan on betraying and shooting?"

"Thirty seconds." Wade was going through the numbers.

"Hm. Usually much faster, what is hold up?"

"I'm trying to figure a foolpoof way to keep us completely safe. And possibly get more things done. Best case we get the chest and head out without a fight."

"Fat chance of that." Zin laughed, "That's a high elf." Wade decided he should at least try, but prep for plan B anyhow.

"Bael, what happens if the elf dies first before the rest of the demons do? Is their contract nullified?"

"Killing him almost certainly solves nothing. I would guess, all four would be obligated to hunt down the killer. Which would be you."

"Well, that sucks."

"Greatly." Bael snorted.

"Mercy has a cost, and you are not wealthy enough to pay for it. They are enemies. Fight for your life. Anything more is overthinking." Wade got what Bael was talking about. There might be a way to wrangle the four demons out of the contracts they had, but the enemy side had probably years of ironing those out to perfection against any edge case. He had maybe thirty seconds and some guns loaded with bullets. All right, back to basics.

"Warlocks are slave masters basically, right?"

"All but in name." The demon answered back.

"Nice. Well, Eri, how's that sound like to you? Up for killing slavers?" Eri clicked his jaws with clear glee. The four demons weren't here by any real choice, just forced into it. But 'fight for your life' was a valid plan right now. Meanwhile, Leon was having some critical failures with the charisma rolls. Apparently, even his skills in speech had a limit. And that limit was High Elf.

"Hands where I can see them, and step away from your cargo." The Elf called out, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Pilot your skeleton away and have it put its blade down. Do not test me further, I would prefer not to waste resources."

"Is only science equipment in there." Leon tried.

"Come now, what is big issue?" The Elf rolled his eyes, or at least the High Elf version of that according to Market's Blessing, visible through the helmet.

"You still seem to be under the inaccurate belief this chest belongs to you. It most assuredly does not. This is Merced territory. I am part of the city forces, the conclusion should be evident."

"Let us be reasonable, my friend." Leon tried.

"There is nothing important inside chest, only very basic measuring tools."

"It is council property now monkey, and I will decide the worth. Given you continue attempting to hold onto it, I find it far more likely to contain more than your claim might suggest. Come on now, get to it. Step away, hands high in sight, order your demon to stand down, and prepare to submit to questioning. Or I will command my guards to politely escort you back to the spirit realm, without a body." Leon decided to swap tracks.

"Look, I spending all coins I have to get this science done, please. This experiment is everything I have, I need to come back to my fam-" The elf held a hand out instantly and dry heaved.

"What are you doing?" He snapped, "Stop that at once you mutt, be civil for Andrian's sake. Disgusting." That last sentence was more two words put together that implied a cultural faux pa, and… the ick. Wait. The ick? Wade blinked as Market's Blessing gave him that context and spat nothing else. Zin was laughing his ass off over the phone, but the tinny voice clearly didn't reach anyone besides Leon and himself.

Ahead, the group of four demons were clearly gearing up for the offense, while the Elf continued making gagging noises in his helmet as if he'd smelled something rank, then waved a hand over to Leon and the wagon with a general order.

"Uh, so, we start blasting now?" Leon asked.

"Yeah, but we're doing it the smart way. Take a few steps back from the wagon, we don't need anything inside." Wade whispered.

"It'll do as a distraction. Pretend we're giving them what they want." Leon gave a nod, then turned back to the elf.

"Okey, I complying. Take the chest and wagon, I try experiment again in other less contested location."

"Only wish you had come to your senses earlier. I would have considered you a credit to your race, but, alas. You had to go and..." He waved a hand over to Leon's everything, and looked genuinely appalled.

"What exactly did you do?" Wade asked, not really understanding what was going on. Leon shrugged back.

"It's a fun topic to chat about, when you're not in the middle of getting robbed." Zin said, still giggling.

"Speaking of, you really should start doing something soon."

"Not super worried right now, I got a plan." Wade looked over to Eri, who clicked his jaw with glee, walking off like a robot far to the side, where he then sat down and stayed still. He knew exactly what his job would be in all this, and he was waiting for his moment to shine.

"Now move away from command range, both of you." The elf said, blade tip pointing in a lazy circle away from the wagon.

"Stand there together. Good." Wade walked away from the wagon and carefully made his way next to Leon, getting a few droplets of his spray bottle's liquid by tapping the nozzle a few times. Leaky thing still had a tiny bit leftover after the earlier spray. But a droplet was all he really needed. He quickly whispered his plan to the Russian while they stood side by side waiting for the impromptu seizure of their goods. Leon gave a grin, and then slapped Wade on the shoulder.

"Is done. Ready when you are." Wade grinned back, and then slapped Leon back on his hand as hard as he could, until he could feel his own hand sting a little.

"Great. Go time."