Samara nods, "Lanna, she threw a stone at him and cracked his head. We all ran afterwards, but when we checked the next day his body was still there... Someone had stolen his clothes as well..." she mutters.
Michael begins pacing with a contemplative expression, "So... You guy's have nothing then? Without Lateef paying off the guards, you won't even be able to pickpocket?" he questions and Samara slowly nods.
"We stole from Lateef's home, but we will run out eventually. The others have started fighting each other for it." she admits.
'Damn.' Michael mentally comments, feeling as if his efforts to help these kids out had been utterly counterproductive. Now without Lateef to shield them, they'd slowly get caught and imprisoned, that's not to say he wasn't happy that the fat merchant was dead, but regardless of his intentions, he still helped the orphans out a great deal.
He couldn't even do anything about it since he was leaving tomorrow... If only he knew someone in the city that could take care of. them... "Urgh." Michael groans as he rubs the bridge of his nose. "Hey, Samara, come with me. We'll see if we can't get a better replacement for Lateef." he states, holding the girl's hand as he begins walking back to that 'dreaded place'.
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Michael dragged Samara to Loutiel and quickly explained her situation, ending up having to owe the man yet another favour for him to manage the orphans of Antomiers... The worst part was the fact that the man seemed to have been expecting him to turn up and ask this, as he'd already made plans on how to deal with the problem.
Had Loutiel brought him only to watch the execution? Or had he planned on Michael encountering Samara?... It was impossible to know, but whatever the case was, it worked out in Loutiel's favour in the end.
Loutiel's basic plan was to open a number of businesses in the city and man them with the orphans. He'd buy the burnt buildings cheaply and renovate them for his purposes. Michael suspected that if Loutiel's plans all worked out, he'd soon be the most powerful man in the city, barring the Marquess.
Regardless, his job was done. He'd secured some sort of safety net for the orphans, so he had no regrets in leaving them now. All that was left now was arriving on time to board the airship tomorrow.
But, considering he still had a day to himself, he decided to clear up one last thorn. The Salhope gang's leader. The fact that Samara had nearly been sold to those scumbags had pissed him off more than he'd like to admit, so he'd deal with them before the airship arrives.
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Later that night :
A handsome man with tanned skin and black hair tied up into a ponytail lounge against a pile of silks as he slowly breathes in the air thick with arousing incense. Women lay either side of him, teasingly running their fingers across his muscular body with nothing covering their beautiful forms.
In the room around him, a large orgy was currently occurring. This was a celebration of the execution of Luxuron's rival gang leaders, and once the city had stabilised enough, he'd spread his influence to the other territories that'd previously been difficult to claim.
"Hahaha! What great luck I have! Truly! For all of my greatest enemies to be killed without my intervention!? Grand!" Luxuron laughs, taking a jug of wine at his side and drinking deeply from it.
Unfortunately, this celebration was destined to end badly... The double doors on the opposite end of the room crash open as a sweaty servant trips over himself to get inside. "SIR! AN INTRUDER! R-RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" He shouts, but much to the horror of the orgy, a shadow rushes from the open door and stabs the man through the back with a long sword.
"AAAARRGh!-S-SIR!-HHEL-HKK!" the man begs as the blade is roughly extracted.
"KYYYAAAAAA!!!"
Screams erupt in the room, but Luxuron silences them all as he stands and points at the shadow, "STOP! WHO ARE YOU TO INVADE MY TERRITORY!?"
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Michael smirks with a slight blush under his mask as he observes the room, but stays silent. Killing all the gang members had been far easier than he'd expected. His Essence Shift ability essentially made him a killing machine if there were many weaker opponents. His Agility right now was around Fifty, which, when doubled by his Gandalfr runes, made him so fast that most unskilled opponents couldn't even defend themselves.
He had to use a couple Ether Shocks, of course, the fortifications of Luxuron's base hadn't been anything to scoff at, but most of them were ineffective due to his magic and how fast he was.
Michael glances around the place and nods to himself, deciding to just kill everyone here. These people were either corrupt officials that worked for Salhope, gang members who'd earned Luxuron's favour, or women who'd been enslaved long enough for Stockholm Syndrome to kick in.
It may have been a flimsy excuse, but it was better to leave no survivors than to try and give pity to those that might be complicit with this dirty fucking gang.
To untrained eyes, his form blurred as spurts of blood erupted from the nearby people. Michael rushes past one side of the room while beheading everyone in his path, afterwards trailing back and doing the same to the other half. Some of the men tried to fight back, but they couldn't do anything but watch as their feeble defences were breached, and their necks were cut.
Soon enough, the only person remaining in the room was Luxuron, who at this point looked ready to beg for his life. Despite his previously prideful front.
"P-P-Please! Sir! Allow me to live! I'll pay you anything! SIR!" he begs on his knees, but his position only makes it easier to behead him. Michael flicks the blood from his sword and glances around one last time for any survivors before fleeing from the building, knowing that the guards would soon be upon him.
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The next day word of Luxuron and many of his most loyal men's deaths spread through the city. No one really knew who the culprit was, but there were two suspects. The first was the mysterious figure called Batuman who'd been eliminating gangs for a while now.
And the second was actually the Marquess, as he'd already executed two gang leaders, so it wouldn't be strange if he had the last one killed as well.
Regardless, most people were happy that such an event had occurred. The Salhope was relatively 'well-liked' among the Nobility, while the civilians hated them for kidnapping wives, daughters, and essentially enslaving them.
If you failed to pay your debts to them, they'd have you work it off. And regardless of whether you were male or female, the work would be laborious, dirty, and humiliating.
Michael was oblivious to the rumours going around however as he'd just sold Milky in preparation to board the Airship to Albion. You couldn't take horses with you obviously, so it was needed, even if he felt slightly bad for pawning off his first true companion in this world.
The only thing that really improved his dour mood despite this was the large improvements to his status :
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Name : Michael Hunt
Rank : Common
Stats :
Strength : 9 > 10
Agility : 11 > 15.4
Intelligence : 12 > 13
Abilities :
[Gandalfr] : Enables user to utilise any weapon at two ranks above their current proficiency while granting them the knowledge necessary to use them. While wielding a weapon, temporarily gain +100% in all stats.
[Language Comprehension] : Enables user to understand all spoken tongues, and increase the rate of which they learn reading and writing.
Spirits :
Shadow Shaman : Lvl MAX
Slark : Lvl 3 > 8
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Spirit : Slark
Level : 3 > 8
Abilities :
Slithereen Strokes (Rank 1) : Allows user to swim with the same proficiency of the Slithereen race.
Dark Pact (Rank 1) : After a short delay, user purges most negative debuffs and deals damage to enemies around him, while also dealing damage to user. (User takes half damage)
Pounce (Rank 1) : User leaps a large distance while leashing any enemies he lands on. Leashed enemies will be unable to escape user for the duration of the ability.
Essence Shift (Rank 4) : User steals the life essence of enemies with each melee attack, draining each of their attributes and converting them to temporary bonus agility for the user. If user kills a target under this skill's effect, user will gain 0.1 Permanent Agility(Scales based on opponent strength).
Shadow Dance (Rank 1) : Active effect : User is able to shroud themself in a cloud of shadows that render enemies unable to target or detect them for the duration. Passive effect : User gains bonus movement speed and health regen while unseen.
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The biggest changes were obviously his Agility, Essence Shift, and Shadow Dance. To be honest, with the number of people he'd killed last night, such an increase was rather low, fortunately, once Essence Shift has fully upgraded the Agility gain was now scaled based on how powerful the opponent is.
Shadow Dance was also an incredibly useful, yet strange ability... Whenever no one was observing him, he'd feel significantly more powerful than usual. And while he moved, shadows would cling onto him as if attempting to caress him.
He hadn't tried the active effect yet as he wasn't sure how big the cloud of shadows would be, as well as how long it'd take to recharge the ability. It seemed that most ultimate had some kind of arbitrary cooldown. With Shadow Shaman's snakes taking a day or two to recharge now at max level.
Regardless, Michael felt that he was on the tipping point of becoming completely broken. Something that he was rather excited for. For now, he was sat waiting for the Airship to get here.
The Airship would arrive at around noon, so Michael was left sitting on a bench waiting for it since he'd woken up at around 11am. Fortunately, he had a new book to alleviate his boredom... The Magical Theory book he'd gotten from Loutiel.
He hadn't gotten the chance to try any spells yet, but he was learning a good amount about how magic in this world actually functioned. Essentially, it was all elemental manipulation with some slight assistance from ambient magic.
The methods used by the descendants of Brimir essentially involved using words, gestures, and runes to force the elements to work in certain ways. Allowing people to create spells that could be used by others, regardless of their skills in manipulating certain elements.
Of course, some spells required proficiency in combining elements, but those were regarded as higher levels ones. Dots, or one element spells could be used by everyone from the get-go if you knew the gestures and words. But Lines, Triangles, and Squares required knowledge on elemental manipulation.
Michael closes the book and stops his studies for now however, as it seems that the Airship had finally arrived. Over the ocean, he could see the familiar shadow slowly making its way through the sky...
A frown formed on his face however as he noticed something... Using the Ganalfr runes to enhance his vision, he notices how ragged the airship actually looked.
Small fires continued unimpeded in various areas, and many holes could be seen in both the wood and the sails. Lastly, he couldn't see a single person atop the Airship, meaning that no one was currently manning it...
It continue to fly towards the city, but unlike last time, its momentum wasn't slowing at all. His eyes widen as he stands and starts sprinting away from the Airship landing zone, nearby people noticing them and mimicking his actions.
Screams soon sound out as the Airship finally enters the airspace over the city, its trajectory being the landing zone, but... It was coming in far too fast!
"Holy fuck!" Michael exclaims, wondering if this is what it felt like to personally witness 911. He looks over his shoulder just in time to see the huge Airship barrel into the landing platform, completely destroying it and itself, while sending huge stone shards flying all over the city.
The remnants of the Airship weren't dissuaded either as it begin rolling through the city, flattening a great many buildings as people scream and try to flee from it.
Despite Michael having gotten a good distance away from it, he was still forced to dodge various shrapnel from the stone platform and the pieces of the ship that'd flown off.
The destroyed ship slowly slides to a halt, and that would have been the end of it if it were just a regular ship, but... This had been equipped with weaponry, cannons, and a Wind Stone engine that allowed it to fly. This meant that it had a large stockpile of both Wind Stones and Gunpowder...
*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!!*
A humungous explosion occurs from within the destroyed remnants of the airship, launching sub-sonic speed shrapnel in all directions, while also causing a LITERAL FUCKING TORNADO TO FORM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY!
Michael doesn't even give a second glance as he hightails it towards the city gate. His method of getting to Albion was fucked, so there wasn't any need to stay in this shit hole anymore. He doubted there'd even be anything left if that tornado continued unimpeded!
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