The trip through the forest in hunt of the Harpy Queen was a rather quick one. Which made sense, as she still apparently had crippled wings from one of her daughters deposing her.
Though once again, I did not find the Harpy Queen, she ended up finding me...
A heavy yet warm wind pushed against me and I could hear my ring heat up as it translated words carrying through the winds. "Thou are not one of the hunters." A refined voice spoke out and I instinctively looked up and saw the Harpie Queen floating on the air with a distorted platform of what seemed like compressed air beneath her feet or something.
Cool eyes stared down at me, and I could feel even as her winged arms laid limply at her sides. The sheer gulf in power in magic between us. "I am indeed not one of the hunters," I spoke evenly and she raised an eyebrow with a smirk coming across her lips.
"Ah. Thou art Noble Born then, or at least indentured to a mage of power if you are capable of speaking that of the monster tongue." She mused and then shook her head as she refocused on me. "Then what purpose does your hunt of myself serve?"
I took a breath and then spoke bluntly. "The hunters have put in requests to have you stop harassing, and stealing the products of their own hunts." I answered frankly and she raised a eyebrow before chuckling and with her levity I was to take in appearance without her powerful mana all but crushing my consciousness.
She had some clear musculature, not as much as Isha had honestly, but she had silver hair that matched her silver wings that had some brownish almost black tinges at the end of the feathers on her wings. Nor was she as stacked as Isha, but her frame was ample enough.
"That honesty is most appealing to myself little human.. Nay, you bear the scent of lightning? A half-blood perhaps?" She mused before snorting and her eyes landed on me with a glint in her eyes as she said frankly. "My wings are crippled little human, I cannot fly, but only hover in the air using my magic... As a high-level crippled being, I am being hunted by humans and monsters alike to gain the strength that comes from slaying me."
She leaned in and said frankly. "Why should I stop taking some easy food when I cannot properly hunt?"
I was about to reply... But in the end, she was one of the 'intelligent' monsters. And thus she by literally designed by whoever or whatever makes the new monster species and breeding colonies, had them not have any real morals or codes to hold themselves by. Beyond the simple reality of the 'strongest rules'.
So I decided to appeal to that. "You know there are strong humans right?" I asked and the harpy queen's eyes tightened on me as I continued honestly. "Right now, in the human cities, you are a low-ranked mission so they sent me who is rather weak to tell you to leave those hunters alone."
"And?" She said blandly. "You shall report back that I was an issue? That mine hunger knows no bounds and my desire for companionship needs to be assagued by the blade taking my head and collecting my wings?" She demanded and for a long moment we made eye contact.
Until I slowly said carefully as I realized she was thankfully in my range of a Blink if needed if I needed to attack. "I would hope that not to be the case... But the parties involved want you to leave the hunters alone. I am merely a messenger as I cannot force you to leave them alone obviously."
The queen snorted and I shivered as thick almost solid winds caressed my form like fingers running over my flesh. "What other bloodline, do you carry halfblood?" She asked finally as I flexed some lightning to throw off the molesting solid winds.
I frowned as I realized... I really shouldn't have gotten involved in this quest, though thankfully with my experience in killing goblins, I knew I would be able to deal with her without issue in terms of not freezing up in the act. But there was still a large gulf in our power.
But even with her arms crippled. I didn't like my chances at all in a straight fight. So I took a breath and with a soft thumping noise, my golden wings popped out of my back making her raise an eyebrow as I said simply. "Storm Dragon."
Her slitted eyes roamed my figure and would always return to my wings and eventually, I saw her lick her lips. 'Oh oh.' I thought with some dread climbing into my spine as I said finally.
"Alright, I have given you your warning. I will be leaving now." I said and my wings beat through the air as I prepared to fly away from the harpy queen who was looking at me with eyes of hunger. And not the good lusty kind of hunger.
"No. Did I dismiss you, little half-breed?" She said with authority in her voice as solid winds held my wings in place and making my eyes water at the pain as she somehow lifted up my form via my wings which fucking hurt. Like on the level of someone dragging you across the room by the ear type of pain but maginifed by a good couple times.
"Enough you fucking bitch!" I snapped and loud cracking noise rang out as lightning violently arced my form. And without another second I Blinked directly in front of her with my hands now filled with my sword Siren falling down as I aimed to bisect the harpy queen before she could react.
But as my blade reached but an inch away from her head my sword's descent slowed to a crawl and my muscles tensed as I gritted my teeth to push my sword down but no matter how I pushed I couldn't get my sword to touch her flesh.
"Your armor is interesting... It prevents magic from harming you, but it obviously doesn't protect the parts of your body that aren't covered by it." She mused and then she spun in the air like a blur and my vision went dark as she roundhouse kicked me towards the ground and I felt several branches give way as I was smashed through them.
I couldn't help but lay on the ground for a second as I could feel the dent in my Antimagi armor fucking up my breathing until with a pop, the metal snapped back into place and I gagged as I could finally catch my breath along with a system pop sounding off.
[Regeneration Trait Active.]
Already I could feel my cracked ribs resetting as my maxed-out Constitution potential went about healing it with a heat in the area. "I apologize little human, but your Storm Dragon bloodline is needed for me to take back my throne. I will keep you as my human love slave but beyond my affections, I will allow you to slake your desires on trusted harpies that gain my favor." Tempeste spoke as she landed beside me and as I rolled over onto my back I saw her raise an eyebrow as she said with some amusement.
"Wow... You indeed are something else, I can tell you are low-level level and such a kick should have emptied your health bar and rendered you unconscious." She kneeled down and then attempted to pick up my sword Siren and as her hands closed around the handle I grinned as the handle sent three-inch long diamond-shaped spikes through her hand making her snarl as she dropped the weapon.
And as she looked back at where I was previously on the ground with a snarl, I Blinked again behind her. This time with the khukuri and as I fell out of the air from my teleport I slammed into her back with my dagger ramming into her spine with a loud crunching noise.
"Guh!" She choked and for a moment she stood up with my entire body weight hanging onto the dagger that had been shoved into her spine and then with a cracking noise I fell to the ground again... But it was because the blade of the khukuri snapped under the weight of my abrupt probably about three hundred pounds of weight being focused right on the connection to the tang.
Leaving the blade buried inside her spine, and I watched as she woodenly turned her head towards me as the green-tinged wind held her in place before she grinned. "Not bad half-breed... But I refuse to be an easy level-up and materials for someone!" She spoke proudly and then her eyes glowed with terrible green power and my vision went dark as I could feel her mana compressing... Heavier, and heavier. The green light of her form filled my view and I realized what the fuck she was doing.
"Dammit!" I cursed and I blinked as far as I could but all I could hear as haunted laughter reached my ears then a different sigh. And out of the corner of my eyes, a wall of shadows fell over my form and within a moment I was seemingly teleported further away. And as I looked around hurriedly I felt my hands being grabbed as a weight fell onto my back and the source of the hand holding mine shoved me down behind a large rock.
A scream rang out and then whatever Tempeste was doing erupted, and the boulder we were hiding behind cracked, and the trees surrounding us were sliced into small chunks by the absolute hail of wind blades that were sent in every direction with the tree's almost falling onto us, but were blocked by a screen of solid shadows.
I first looked at my hands and saw a hand clad in black gloves and a plate that protected the back of the hands. I then tried to look behind me but as I turned to look behind me, I heard a feminine sigh of annoyance before I felt the form against me shift and as I looked backward I only got a glance of a woman clad in ninja-like attire before she seemingly fell into her own shadow and disappeared from my view.
"What the actual fuck..." I said slowly as I stiffly got back to my feet and looked around only to see how all the large trees in that had previously surrounded me for the three hundred meters where the harpy queen had been, were all chopped and blended into literally thousands of pieces. Leaving a large wide open clearing where in the center there was a pit where Tempest had seemingly self-destructed.
So with Tempest dead. Thankfully my sword Siren teleported back into my inventory after being yeeted by her self-destruction. But with my quest subject having killed herself, I was left with just going back home to New Atha to turn in the results of these three quests.
-
I slowly... Made my way back to New Atha, whereas it previously took me a good couple of hours to fly from the city to the small town where Isha had the quest, it took a me good five hours to make my way back to the city as I could only fly for short bursts before my chest pains made me have to land and rest for a bit.
And other than a couple of simple goblins, I didn't see any monsters of note while I was trekking through the kingdom's main road which was obviously kept clear of monsters.
But once I got back to the city all I could hear was people discussing my summoning which had now become common knowledge rather than just the nobility knowing about it. "Got three missions to turn in," I said quietly as handed over the three wooden plaques and a small stack of the wolf fangs for the Galewolf mission.
Then I added on as the receptionist noted down my missions. "Also, I found a level 1 dungeon and would like to register it. It was the source of Isha's goblins." I said tapping that plaque and the receptionist raised an eyebrow before she said evenly.
"Very well please explain the location you found it and with it being registered under the town guardian, you are eligible for a reward of one gold coin for a newborn dungeon," She said evenly and I nodded and then placed my hand on a truth stone for her to record my explanation of the area and to verify the details of my missions to make sure I did them.
The adventurer's guild here was great... No matter the level of quest, I was asked if I killed a human or betrayed a teammate while doing my mission which I suppose made sense in keeping the adventurers accountable. But once everything was declared on the up and up, I was paid for the three missions.
"Know where I can find some decent middle-class apartments?" I asked the receptionist and she nodded telling me the adventurer's guild had long-term apartments and homes for rent for decent prices and different luxury levels going up from basic street rats to living like the queen herself.
"I will... Take this one." I said pointing out a two-bedroom apartment that was actually built in a circular design around other apartments with the center being a communal workshop with a smithy and other things. Which could be useful as I did have all the knowledge of a master blacksmith downloaded into my head from my CYOA.
I then bade the receptionist goodbye and went to go check the missons to see if anything interesting had come up in the low-ranked missions section as being a Wood-ranked adventurer. I could only take Wood ranked quests or Bronze level if I had a party of three or more, which I certainly didnt. 'Maybe I should look into that whole slave thing... I mean I literally am reincarnated into a RPG world with levels and shit.' I thought as my lips twitched at the utterly shit missons on the Wood mission board.
And that was no exaggeration as several missions had to deal with dealing with the overpopulation of slimes and other monsters that fed off human/supernatural remains in the sewers... And it may have been arrogant of me.
'I am not killing slimes in the sewers!' I thought strongly before I looked longly at the bronze missons and then bemoaned how I didn't have any form of a trustworthy party.
Even as I looked around the guild as though I could magically find a trustworthy party I could go onto the more popular Bronze-ranked missons. I heard a large man dressed in plate mail chuckle as held an arm around a woman who was dressed like a stereotypical witch. "Man that summoned hero though. I bet he is a total fucking sucker who has zero idea how this world works... Think someone could steal his cheat sword or whatever he got?" The man said with a bit of a drunken slur.
The witch woman visibly cringed and rolled the arm off her shoulder and said coldly. "I would appreciate you keeping your hands to yourself... But in either case, if someone dared to mess with New Atha's new golden hero, I can see the kingdom's Shadows making sure they don't wake up in the morning."
The word 'Shadow' made the man visibly shudder and his eyes cleared up and he chewed on his thoughts before shutting up and getting into his drink again.
'So that woman was part of the kingdom 'Shadows?' Is the Kingdom trying to give me an illusion of freedom and is keeping a close eye on me?' I thought with a frown before I was reminded all too clearly about how I was basically on my own.
'I need a party or something... Leveling up alone is dangerous without any kind of backup. But I need someone trustworthy." I thought and came to the realization that I needed to just buck up and accept the local culture and get myself a slave or something. As I didn't want to get my shit stolen or like the harpy queen hinted at, have my bloodline and other blessings absorbed.