Chương 79: Chapter 80: The death life cycle

I don't lose track of the number of times we go through the cycle, but I do lose track of the days. Wrax has leveled up twice, and I've now died half a dozen more times. I've managed to improve my base stats by 84 every time I died. Most recently, I've hit level one again, but my stats are absolutely insane. At level one, I have 246 hit points and 261 defense. Most of my skills have leveled up multiple times, and my spells and abilities are almost all improved over what they used to be.

I'm a tank, I can catch arrows with my bare hands without hurting myself, I'm way stronger than I've ever been, and I basically feel like this is getting unfair. If we go back to Elmspire at level 30 now, we're going to be absolutely insane. I'm pretty sure El would have five digits of health at this point. We were going on a simple timing strategy. Wrax would come and take one of us out every day, leveling us from one to twenty nine in a manner of hours, and then killing us.

El never stopped fighting him, but never got close to actually killing him. Even with her massive strength boosts, she just couldn't do the kind of damage we need to do to kill the dragon. So she dies, again and again, just like the rest of us. It doesn't seem to be affecting us all that much. I mean, I still don't like dying, and I still don't want to do it. But I guess it doesn't really scare me anymore. Death is just a part of the way things go. And it's how I got my stats where they are.

Ash, El, and I have never had the chance to really talk about what the kisses mean, or about whether we wanted to have a threesome. It seems odd to have sex in the dragon's cave. Even though we kind of have our own room, and we do have a tent where we would have privacy, it still seems wrong. And we're almost always down to just two of us. The only times all three of us are here, so is Wrax. And having sex in someone else's house without them being involved feels rude. And I do not want to fuck a dragon.

"We should check in on Gigi and Vincent," Ash says after El wakes up and reorients herself. It takes a few minutes after coming back to life for everything to kind of slot in together and make sense again. I understand why they ask those questions in Elmspire. Or at least what the goal of those questions is, even if it doesn't help as much as it should.

"See if they want to come and have a turn."

"I don't think Vincent will come," El says.

"He's kind of a coward about things like dying."

"You used to be kind of a coward about things like dying," I point out.

"Nuh uh," she says.

"I never backed down from dying. I just don't like it."

"I don't like it either," I say.

"And I'm getting bored of it."

"Me too," El says.

"I'm so glad someone else said it. I want to go adventuring again."

"But we need the others to level up too," Ash says.

"They need to get to our level in stats."

"It'll never happen if Vincent doesn't want to die," I point out.

"We're just going to have to accept that we'll be protecting him more than he'll be really helping us."

"What about Gigi, though? She might do it." Ash looks over at Wrax, who is sleeping on his pile of treasure.

"We should check in with them either way," I say.

"Maybe we're wrong about Vincent." I walk over to the little museum of treasures that Wrax has. I've been here a lot, trying to decide which item I want the most, several times over the past few days. Weeks? I'm not sure how long it's been. I've narrowed it down to three items. One is a buckler shield, shaped like a leaf the same as my last one, but with sharp edges.

One is a sword that is way better than the blade I currently have, and one is a set of actual scale armor that may or may not have been made from Wrax's own scales. I don't think it is, but I can't be actually certain. Leaf shield of aggression. Very rare shield 30/30. +30 defense. Base damage: 40-45. Dragon Forged Sword. Legendary weapon 40/40. Based damage: 280-292. Dragon Scale armor. Very rare armor set 30/30. Set bonus (per piece): +30 defense. Pieces in set: 3. It's a tough decision.

On the one hand, I should grab the sword. It does more damage than my current sword probably ever will, and it's legendary quality while the other two are just very rare. But at the same time, the dragon scale armor adds ninety to my defense. And that is really hard to pass up. But it doesn't really add ninety, it only adds sixty or so over what I currently have. And the shield adds thirty defense and an extra attack, which is tempting. But it's also potentially a trap.

I mean, what if I pick something that Wrax doesn't actually want to part with? What if I try to force him to give it to me? I don't think that the three of us could take him even if we were at his level. And we're not; we're all at level one. Even with all our tricks and everything, we're still just level one. I have 246 hit points. Ash has 300 and El has 340. We don't even hit a thousand between us. Even with our Shells fully maxed out, none of us can handle even a single hit from Wrax.

So I can't force him to give something to me. I can't make him keep his word. Either he does or he doesn't. But it's more than that. I don't want him to think that I'm choosing the treasure that would make it easiest for me to kill him. I mean, the sword would mean that I could do close to five hundred damage a strike. That puts his health within reach, at least more than it used to be. Will he think that I'm choosing the sword just so I can kill him? Will he think I'm choosing the armor for the same reason?

An extra sixty points to my defense might mean the different between surviving one of his blows and surviving two or even three of them. I don't know. I don't know how much damage he does to me when I'm trying to defend myself; I've always just let him kill me, while not wearing any armor of any kind. Maybe he won't do as much if I'm wearing armor. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Also, Wrax is kind of like a member of the party now.

We've helped him gain two levels, we talk a bit while we're leveling up, and I'm starting to feel like we could be friends. I'm contemplating, on the next level up, convincing him not to kill me, and just to let me go until I find the need to go through this all again. We know how powerful the god slayer is potentially, but not actually. For all we know, we're already stronger than the god slayer, just with a few carefully orchestrated deaths. We don't know that the god slayer was in the tutorial for a full year.

We don't know anything about them. I think I want the sword, but I'm not sure how to tell him. Do I just say that I've decided on the sword, or do I let him think that it's his idea that I take the sword? Do I say I'm inspired by his talons and want one of my own? I'll worry about that when he wakes up. Right now, there's still the question of what to do about Gigi and Vincent.

"I sent Gigi a message," El says.

"She says that she's died twice doing the challenges of the knighthood, but she's back up in level now. She's interested in coming here, but doesn't know if she can get away from her guild duties. She seems to be having a lot of fun in the guild."

"That's good," Ash says.

"Maybe we should stay here and keep doing this for a little while longer. Just get a little bit stronger." I shake my head.

"No. We can come back if we want to, but I want to get back out and into the thick of things. I'm tired of doing the same thing every day. I'm tired of just training."

"Me too," El says.

"It's boring."

"We'll see what Vincent says," Ash says. It's not quite an agreement, but also not quite an argument. Does she want to stay here and just keep going? Is she determined to become a god slayer? I'm a little worried about just how power hungry her demon blood has made her. Ash looks off to the side for a bit, then nods.

"He says that he has managed not to die, and has reached significant heights of power. He's an archmage now, whatever that means. And he is moving up in his guild, learning lots of spells and spending a lot of time practicing them. I asked him if he wanted to boost his stats, but I'm not sure he cares."

"Depending on what level he's gotten to, he might think his stats are fine," I say.

"Wait until he gets a load of us," El says.

"He'll change his mind. They both will."

"And what if they don't?" Ash asks.

"If they don't, do we force them to? Do we start killing them?"

"Why would we do that?" I ask.

"They aren't weak for their level. We're just really, really strong for ours. If they can keep up, they can keep up. I mean, Vincent is probably a pretty high level by now."

"Forty three," Ash confirms.

"According to his message, at least." That's pretty high. Last I saw him, he was only level thirty.

"I think it's time," I say.

"We should head back to Elmspire and hand in some quests. Level up and see if they want to go traveling again."

"And if they don't, do we come back here?" Ash asks. I shrug.

"We could," I say.

"We'd get to adventure a bit on our way."

"Unless we adventure until we die, and just get respawned back here," El says. She seems almost excited by the idea.

"Are you tired of the cycle of life and death?" Wrax doesn't open his eyes, but his voice carries pretty well in the cave.

"For now," I tell him.

"You're not in a rush, are you?"

"No," he says.

"No other gods have been slain. The god slayer is likely consolidating power or focused on other things at the moment. Perhaps they are getting more talents. Whatever the case, I am in no rush."

"So we can go back to civilization for a while?"

"If that is your wish," he says.

"But I will not carry you back there. You will have to travel on foot."

"What?" Ash asks.

"Why?"

"Because I am not a transport vessel," Wrax says.

"It was one thing to bring you here, to my domain. We had a purpose for that. You want to adventure? Go adventure. Travel to your home, or to another city, and level up along the way."

"But the monsters in this area are really high level," I say.

"Then be sneaky," he says. He shifts a bit in his pile, pushing his nose into his tail.

"Or wait until tomorrow and we will go back to the cycle of death and rebirth." His voice is dismissive, and soon enough his breathing gets deep enough for me to think that he's sleeping.

"I don't like this," Ash says.

"What if we die trying to get to Elmspire?"

"Then we come back here," I say.

"With worse equipment."

"We won't be low level for long," El says.

"And like he said, we can sneak for a while. That'll get us experience, too. We'll be back up to kicking ass before you know it." I go and grab the sword from its rack.

"Wrax, I'm taking this sword," I say. He huffs in his sleep. I don't know if that means he heard me or not. Or if I should have left the sword here, in case we don't survive the trek back to Elmspire. I could've waited and had a better sword. Well, I'll put my Slayer's Blade in my spatial bag, so I'll at least have that when I die. Maybe I'll be able to convince him to give me the armor anyway.

"So we're agreed that we're going to do the sneaky thing?" I ask. I'm mostly looking at El, but Ash isn't exactly silent walking around in all that armor. We may have a lot of sneak, but there are limits.

"At least until we find a monster by itself?" They both nod in agreement. I look at Ash.

"Why don't you take your armor off and put it in your bag? You'll sneak better without it." She looks at her pauldrons, her vambrace, her breastplate, her greaves, gauntlets, and tasset.

"What if we have to fight?" she asks.

"Then you'll go through one fight with a lower defense rating," I say.

"Is it even going to be lower with how many points you've put into agility?"

"It'll still be lower," she insists.

"But I guess you're right. I don't need the armor if we're going to be sneaking. And I'll be a lot quieter without it." She begrudgingly starts taking off her armor, putting it into her spatial bag. It'll still weigh a few extra pounds, but I don't think she'll even notice. Her strength is well above two hundred at this point.

"Let's be sneaky!" El says, rubbing her hands together. She then looks out the cave entrance.

"And let's learn to climb down. I don't know if we can survive the fall." Wrax's cave isn't at the base of the mountain. It's about a hundred feet up, and those hundred feet are a pretty sheer cliff. It's not easy to get to his cave. Which is probably something he likes about it. He's unlikely to be bothered by intruders. And even if there are intruders, they'll likely be out of breath by the time they climb up a hundred foot tall cliff.

So they won't be ready for a fight, certainly not the type of fight a dragon like Wrax can bring them. We don't have rope. Not enough of it, anyway. We have enough to tie ourselves together, but I'm not sure that's a good idea. If one of them falls, do I want to get dragged down with them? If we're tied together, will we be able to catch the one who falls, or will it just mean that we all fall together, all die together, and all suffer the same loss of stats together?

If we do fall, I bet Ash is going to use that as an excuse to stay here and keep doing the level up and dying thing. She's only coming because El and I both want to go. But does that mean we should be tied together or that we shouldn't? I don't have time to really figure it out and debate with myself. Shortly after realizing that we don't have enough rope to make it to the bottom, El started climbing down. Without tying off with either one of us. She's just free climbing this bitch.

"Come on," she says, moving relatively quickly.

"The sooner we get started, the sooner we'll be down."