Chương 48: (48) 2.1. A Well Earned Rest

Leaning back against his favorite tree, Vin dug into his grilled sqerret with relish, all but moaning as the savory, meaty juices dripped down his chin. Apparently not one, but three of the crafters from the second wave had chosen cooking as their specialization, and Vin swore right then and there that he'd sacrifice just about anything to keep the three of them safe.

Attempting to wipe his face with his free hand, Vin paused, a spike of pain and sorrow radiating through him as he realized for the umpteenth time that everything below his left elbow was just gone. It had been nearly three days since losing half of his arm, and even now the pain was as fresh as ever. Even knowing Shia should be able to regenerate it one day after regaining the attributes she lost from the Gods resetting everyone back to level 1 was little comfort.

Who knew how many weeks, or even months that could take.' You're doing it again,' a voice sounded inside his head, snapping him out of his downward spiral.

'I told you Vin, a missing hand isn't the end of the world.' A chill traveled up and out from deep within him as Alka's ghostly form left his body and manifested next to him. The Slayer chose to sit beside him on the ground despite the fact that she couldn't actually touch it.

Even after everything they'd been through, Alka looked the same as the first day they'd met over in her fragment; strapped to the teeth with ethereal daggers that couldn't actually harm anything and an empty sword sheath slung across her back.

"This might come as a surprise to you, but 'get over it,' isn't really the best advice to give someone that's grieving," Vin frowned.

"I lost my hand, Alka. My entire hand!" He repeated, waving his stump in front of the first friend he'd made on this crazy world.

"And gained a divine boon in return," Alka said, rolling her eyes.

"I knew at least a dozen guys in my village that would have taken that deal in a heartbeat. And that's without knowing that they'd be able to grow the hand back one day!"

"Yeah, well you lived in a snake infested hell hole," Vin muttered angrily, not wanting to get into this argument yet again. The downside of having your best friend anchored to you and unable to drift out further than a quarter mile away was that it was a real pain when the two of you fought.

"I don't want to get into this with you again. How are Shia and Scule doing? Haven't seen much of them since we led the second wavers back to camp."

"Fine, last I checked. Shia's been busy tending to the rest of the wounded and getting everyone back on their feet, and Scule's been taking advantage of the lull to restock his supply of poisons. Apparently your fragment has a decent amount of toxic plants scattered about. Nothing too crazy, but enough to take people out of commission for a while."

"No kidding," Vin muttered, remembering the two idiots that had tried eating some random fruit they'd picked without testing it and nearly died when their throats swelled up.

"Scule adding more poisons to his collection is slightly worrying, but I guess I should just be happy he's not running around robbing everyone blind." A few days ago the thought of Scule dabbling with new poisons would have been far more concerning. But after the petian had saved his life during their last battle by risking his life to poison the giant snake he'd been fighting, Vin was a bit more open to the idea.

Vin sighed, leaning his head against the rough bark of the tree and staring up at the clouds as Alka vanished. His mind drifted back to their recent fight for survival and the crazy sequence of events that had followed immediately after. Witnessing a thousand people from Earth suddenly pop into existence directly in front of him wasn't something he'd be forgetting any time soon after all.

He'd also been surprised to discover that carrying out a military coup against a trained force nearly twenty times your own was a lot easier than he would have imagined. Apparently all it took was magically erasing their guns and displaying supernatural powers beyond mortal comprehension. After General Lones' impromptu trial, things had gotten a little crazy.

The general's severed head rolling across the ground had seemed to finally snap most of the crowd out of their shock at witnessing magic for the first time, and it had taken General Witherson and her own officers a good couple of minutes to rein everyone in. Once they'd been sure nobody was going to do anything stupid like attack Spur or flee for their lives into the nearby forests, Spur and Witherson had worked together to gather all the members of wave two before leading them over to their makeshift camp.

Which had been surrounded by hundreds of still fresh monster corpses. And more than a few human ones as well. That had finally rid the second wave of any lingering complaints about their current situation, and nobody had argued when Witherson officially announced that she was allowing Spur to remain in command. With the help of Lieutenant Myers and Witherson's own officers, Spur had broken up the thousand fresh faces into smaller groups and began the clean up effort.

Rather than letting him burn all the monster corpses like he'd been planning, Shia had finally taken the time to explain about Erik and his needs to the colonel and even helped lead the effort to bring the hundreds of monster corpses over to the Sacred Forest for Erik's consumption. Normally, regular monsters didn't have a high enough magic concentration to be worth transporting, but the sheer quantity of them after the battle was able to make up for that this time around.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. It was around that time that Vin had finally broken off from the main group. By then, it had been over twenty-four hours since he'd last slept if you didn't include the scattered rest he'd gotten while waiting for the monsters to spawn and attack them.

During that time he'd broken into a massive citadel in search of a holy artifact capable of killing his best friend, experienced getting his arm cut off by a deranged swordsman that had to have been at least three times his level, had the secrets to the universe unveiled to him during a one-on-one conversation with a God of all things, and saved everyone's lives by strangling an elite monster the length of a bus to death with its own discarded skin. He'd earned a nap.

Spur must have agreed, as the colonel hadn't said a word when Vin walked off, choosing instead to focus on solidifying his command over the members of wave two. If he was planning to catalog everyone's class and abilities like he had with wave one, he had his work cut out for him after all. Not wanting anyone to interrupt him, Vin hadn't even gone to his assigned room back in camp, instead choosing to head out of camp altogether and finding a patch of grass that looked particularly soft.

Trusting in Alka to wake him if anything dangerous got close, he'd collapsed, finally letting all the fatigue catch up to him and welcoming the dark embrace of sleep. By the time he'd woken up nearly an entire day had passed, and still nobody had bothered coming to find him. Not ready to deal with people just yet, Vin had stayed out in the forest, munching on more hardtack from Alka's hometown as he practiced meditating in an attempt to clear his mind.

The more time he spent meditating and going over his runic formations, the less time he had to remember the sensation of his arm getting chopped off or the sound of Patty dying right beside him to a random crossbow bolt. He'd spent another day like that, simply enjoying the quiet sounds of the forest and trying to come to terms with everything he'd been through.

Despite the fact that he hadn't gone very far, he wasn't interrupted by anyone from camp, and he suspected that Alka was keeping people away from him while he got his thoughts sorted out. It had taken Reginald stopping by and delivering a warm meal from camp to finally draw him out of his introspection, the rat squeaking hello and dropping off the grilled sqerret before running back toward camp, no doubt in search of Scule.

Coming back to the present, Vin finished off the surprise meal with an appreciative sigh, doing his best to clean up with only one hand before pulling up his system interface. While he didn't gain any experience from fighting, he'd discovered dozens upon dozens of new monsters during their recent battle, and gained quite a few levels in both Spellcraft and Meditation over the past two days. Vinnie Stone Explorer: Lvl 19 Titles: Human Vessel (Lesser) Exp.

186, 160/190, 000 Strength: 13(10) Dexterity: 20(6) Endurance: 38(4) Vigor: 20(4) Focus: 23(2) Magic: 25 Attribute Points: 3 Skill Points: 1 Passive Points: 0 Vows/Boons: Vow of Benevolence/Grace of Gods (Boon) Capstone: Runic Recalibration Passives: Mental Map, Polyglot, Distance Runner, Threat Detection Skills: Tracking lvl 6, Spellcraft lvl 20, Meditation lvl 16, Dungeoneering lvl 1, Resistance lvl 7, Running lvl 8, Cartography lvl 1 Spells: Sense Stone, Sense Life, Sense Magic, Renewal, Replenish, Entangle, Concealment, Light Vin glanced at his overall level, his eyebrows raising as he realized he was just a few thousand experience away from finally hitting level 20.

As far as he knew, Spur's own level 13 was the second highest in camp, meaning he was leaps and bounds beyond anyone else from Earth. And that didn't even factor in the bonus stats he got from Alka or his divine boon from the Gods, let alone his various spells and deadly companions. While his own experiences had gone to great lengths to show him there were things in this world far more dangerous than himself, he couldn't help but feel good about all he'd accomplished since arriving in Edregon.

Continuing his current plan, Vin placed his three points into magic, bringing it up to 28 before turning his attention to his level 20 Spellcraft skill. Sure enough, as soon as he focused on it, he received a new message from the system. Level 20 Spellcraft is capable of skill evolution. Spend a skill point to evolve skill? It was the first time he'd received such a message, but thanks to his companions he'd known this was coming. Mentally confirming, he spent his one and only skill point.

In return, his Spellcraft skill vanished, replaced with something new. Spellcraft lvl 20 has evolved into Runecraft lvl 1! 200 exp gained. Vin waited a moment for any sort of follow up or in depth explanation, but he didn't know why he bothered. Like always, the system didn't give him any information as to how Runecraft differed from Spellcraft, and left it entirely up to him to figure things out.

Thankfully, he was all but positive Shia herself had to have performed the identical skill evolution already, meaning he actually had somebody he could ask for help this time.

"You finally done being all aloof and mysterious?" Alka asked, walking back over to him.

"I'm getting tired of scaring all the new people away from this section of the forest. From what I've gathered it sounds like Spur ordered people to give you some space, but that hasn't stopped everyone. I think there's a rumor going around or something that you'll grant people wishes if they can find you."

"Yeah… The whole 'powerful elder meditating in the forest' isn't really my thing," Vin chuckled, getting to his feet and collecting his trash. He'd spent far more time wandering the wilderness back on Earth than most, and he'd always hated seeing just how much litter got everywhere. If this new world ended up just like Earth, it certainly wasn't going to be because of him.

"I think you're a few years too young for that anyway," Alka snorted, reaching out to take some of his trash. Nodding his thanks, Vin handed her his tray, staring blankly as it phased right through her ethereal fingers and clattered to the ground. Rolling his eyes, he did his best to keep the smile off his face as he ignored the cackling ghost and regathered his trash. He wasn't sure how, but he'd get her back for that somehow. But first he had to face the music.