Having finally gotten what he needed from Madam Trebella, Vin ran off to gather his team. Unfortunately, even with her side of the bargain on the line, Madam Trebella hadn’t been able to tell him how long they actually had before Alka faded away for good. Because his title had been upgraded once to lesser tier, she estimated they had at least a day or two instead of mere hours, but that still wasn’t a ton of time.

  After leaving the manor behind him, thankfully without running into Xaril again, Vin had originally taken off in the direction of the room they’d stayed in only a few days ago. To his surprise however, almost immediately he spotted a familiar pair of faces running toward him, with Shia not far behind.

  “Vin!” Scule shouted, riding up to him on Reginald and frowning up at him. “Shia told us the news. Did that bastard really kill her? I mean, kill her for real? Is she actually gone?!”

  “Scule!” Shia shouted, finally catching up and glaring at the petian. “I told you Vin was having a rough time with all this! You can’t just-”

  “She’s not gone,” Vin said, cutting the Druid off and earning a wide eyed look of shock from her as he continued. “...not yet. I just spoke with Madam Trebella. Alka’s dying, and fast, but we actually have a chance to save her before she fades away completely.”

  “Glad that Witch is good for something!” Scule grinned, his eyes filled with determination. “Just tell us what we need to do!”

  “It’s good to have you on board again, Scule…” Vin said, unable to hide his smile as Shia’s eyes began filling with tears at the unexpected news. Vin had suspected she’d been trying to keep it together for his sake, but he had no doubt losing Alka had hurt her almost as much as it had him, if not even more. Crouching down, he matched Scule and Reginald’s determined looks, holding up the paper he’d gotten from Madam Trebella.

  “...because if we want to save Alka’s life, we’re gonna have to pull off the heist of the century.”

  -----

  After a brief conversation with The One That Paints In Red where Vin promised the trogum they’d still bring it to ‘the flowing red’ later on, and a quick thank you to Agne for watching over the confused being and providing it with some reddish paint she’d made from pulping a few plants in her garden, Vin and his companions took off toward the edge of the fragment.

  As much as it pained Vin to let the divine warrior continue running wild in the trogum’s home fragment, saving Alka came first. It certainly didn’t hurt his decision knowing that the Rebel Queen had betrayed them for whatever reason, calling her elite warrior back once they’d attacked the divine warrior. Vin still had no idea what had led her to do so, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that if they’d only had one more skilled warrior fighting with them it may have been enough to stop the lizardman before he’d finished his speech.

  It wasn’t fair to let thousands of innocent trogum’s die for the actions of their queen, but Madam Trebella had a good point.

  Without Alka, they didn’t stand a chance against the divine warrior anyway.

  “So what’s the plan?” Scule finally asked now that they were on the move. Vin had explained that time was of the essence, and everyone had agreed to wait until they were on the move before discussing what the plan actually was.

  “The infernals’ village actually received a few dozen travelers over the past couple of months before Madam Trebella threw up her ritual to hide the village,” Vin explained, weaving around trees and insects as they ran through the forest. “A handful of them mentioned having witnessed one rather strange fragment in particular, and two people even went so far as to venture deep into it. The key to bringing back Alka resides within that fragment.”

  An angry squeak arose from his front pocket, and Scule kicked his shoulder. “I’m with Reginald on this one, stop drawing things out and tell us what we need to know!”

  “There’s a library,” Vin said, catching the petian’s surprised look as he continued. “Supposedly watched over by some powerful protector. If the information those two travelers gave Madam Trebella is accurate, then Alka’s new anchor is within that library.”

  “How exactly is a book going to help Alka?” Shia frowned, worriedly petting Blossom as it ran. The elf’s eyes were still red and puffy after she’d learned that Alka wasn’t dead just yet, and Vin hoped for her sake just as much as Alka’s that they didn’t lose the Slayer a second time.

  “There’s more than just books inside,” Vin explained, dodging around a jab from a large bee he nearly ran face first into. “According to the travelers, the guardian of the library doesn’t have any assistants with them. No living ones at least.”

  “Golems!” Shia gasped, her eyes lighting up as she realized what he was getting at. “The library is staffed by golems?”

  “Yeah. And not just simple, ‘follow my commands’ or ‘carry my message’ golems. The travelers said these golems were like nothing they’d ever seen before. Lightning fast when needed, and capable of defending the library from outside threats. Alka wants nothing more than to continue killing monsters, which means her subconscious should happily bind to one of them. That’s what Madam Trebella thinks anyways.”

  “So hold on… We need to somehow steal a combat golem… Away from a group of other combat golems… All under the nose of some powerful guardian?” Scule summed up, giving him an incredulous look. “Vin, I know I’m good, but even I’m not that good.”

  “It gets better,” Vin said, unable to help from grinning at the Rogue’s curse. “The library? Apparently it’s flying.”

  “And by flying you mean-”

  “I mean it’s on a big chunk of land, suspended a few hundred feet off the ground,” Vin nodded. “Apparently the first traveler who spoke of it to Madam Trebella was some form of avian race capable of flight, and the second traveler had some sort of artifact that allowed her to levitate.”

  Scule merely stared at him, his mouth hanging open as though he’d forgotten how to talk. After a few seconds he shook his head, sputtering.

  “Vin, maybe you smacked your head running from that divine warrior or something, but in case you can’t remember, none of us can fly!”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Grinning, Vin waited for Alka to chime in and say she’d be willing to throw the petian up there instead, before he remembered she wasn’t there any more. Sucking in a deep breath, he ignored the painful, empty feeling in his chest as he continued running.

  “I know we can’t fly,” he finally admitted, shooting a glance toward Shia. “...I was kinda hoping you’d be able to help with that.”

  “Me?” Shia blinked, startled out of whatever she’d been thinking about. “Vin, there’s a lot I can do, but flying isn’t one of them.”

  “I know that. But you can get us up much higher than we can get on our own.”

  The two of them looked at each other, and he watched as recognition finally dawned in the elf’s eyes.

  “Vin, Rapid Growth can certainly make a tree grow quickly… But it would take me weeks to gather the mana needed to grow a tree a few hundred feet into the air, and there’s no guarantee the tree itself would even manage to stay upright. It’s a good idea, but it’s just not-”

  Shia suddenly stopped mid sentence, eyes widening as some errant thought struck her.

  “You have an idea?” Vin asked, trying not to let himself fill with hope just yet.

  “An idea,” Shia slowly nodded, frowning as she thought it over. “It should work… But it’s not exactly going to be up to me. I don’t want to make any promises.”

  “A maybe is better than what we had a few minutes ago,” Vin said, giving her a small smile. “Just do what you can. If it doesn’t work, we’ll figure out some other way up there.”

  “Maybe I could train a bird to fly me up there, and then drop a rope down to you guys…” Scule muttered, scratching his chin as he thought.

  Before Vin could chime in on the petian’s plan, a flash of color caught his attention from up ahead, and he realized the treeline was quickly approaching. Pausing at the edge of the woods, he stared in wonder at the newest fragment splayed out before them.

  Where the woods and giant insects ended, sprawling meadows filled with vibrant flowers stretched as far as the eye could see. Vin could easily make out a small family of what looked like tiny dogs, each with three wagging tails rolling around in a nearby patch of yellow flowers, happily barking at one another and chasing each other around. The occasional regular sized bee drifted by, landing on one flower for a moment before soaring off to the next, busy collecting all sorts of pollen. He even saw a small flock of tiny birds soaring by overhead in a V formation, where one of them occasionally broke rank to dive down and snatch up a particularly fat bee in mid flight.

  If he had to pick a single word to describe this flowery fragment, it would have to be…

  Peaceful.

  Evidently he wasn’t the only one who felt this way.

  “Where the hells was this fragment when we were killing ourselves in that field of death!” Scule shouted, shaking a fist at the beautiful scene before them. “This is some demoncrap! We need to go back to the citadel, I want to give the Gods a piece of my mind!”

  “Let’s just be happy we don’t need to run through another killing field on our way to the library,” Vin muttered, checking the instructions Madam Trebella had given him. According to the travelers, the library was three fragments away from the infernals’ village, so they had one more to travel through after this one. “Come on, no sense wasting time.”

  Stepping into the field of flowers was like walking into a perfume department, and Vin nearly recoiled as he felt like he was physically punched in the nose.

  Third ring fragment discovered! 1,500 exp gained.

  “Oh my God!” Vin cried, clutching his nose and trying to see Shia through his watering eyes. “The smells!”

  “It is a bit much,” the elf frowned, even going so far as to take a deep breath in through her nose, seemingly entirely unfazed by the discordance of scents. “Still though, it is a rather pretty fragment.”

  “Definitely an improvement over the giant insects,” Scule nodded, tentatively sniffing the air. “What do you think the people are like here? Some sort of peaceful, loving race that doesn't even understand the concept of violence?”

  “Are you seriously stereotyping the inhabitants of this fragment just because they live in a sea of flowers?” Shia asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “I mean… Yeah?” Scule shrugged.

  “Regardless, we don’t have time for a meet and greet right now,” Vin said, shaking his head in a failed attempt to clear his nose of the fragrant assault. “We’re making a beeline straight for the next fragment!”

  Following his lead, the three of them took off into the flower filled fragment, scaring away the miniature dogs as they began running.

  To Vin’s surprise, despite the seemingly serene meadows, it wasn’t long before they spotted their first monster.

  New monster discovered! 200 exp gained.

  “What is that?” Scule said, pointing at the distant creature.

  A few hundred feet in front of them stood what Vin could only describe as a cross between a hammerhead shark and a wolf. The monster had the body of a large canine, but its head was long and flat, stretching nearly three times the width of its own body and lined with sharp teeth. Its mouth seemed to stretch the entire length of its wide head, and the monster alternated between walking around and pressing its long face down into the flowers, as if hunting for prey.

  “Definitely one of the creepier monster’s we’ve seen,” Vin frowned. The fact that the monster hadn’t even spotted them meant it must have terrible eyesight, and they had to be too far away for it to detect their mana just yet. Again, Vin had to catch himself right before he asked Alka if she wouldn’t mind flying out and taking care of it, another pang of loss reverberating within him.

  “We’ll go around it,” he said instead, shaking his head and directing his friends in a wide loop around the odd monster as they continued on across the fragment. He had to keep reminding himself both that Alka wasn’t there anymore, and that she would be back soon.

  She just had to hold on a little longer.

  Focusing on moving quickly, they managed to make short work of the flower-filled fragment, only having to pause and adjust course a handful of times to avoid more of the strange wolf-shark looking monsters. Vin was fairly confident they’d be able to take one down without issue, but they were pressed for time, and he didn’t want to risk taking on an unknown monster without their main fighter.

  There was no telling what tricks any given monster might have up its sleeve.

  Strangely, despite running through what was essentially the dead center of the fragment, Vin didn’t spot signs of any sort of settlement. He knew from experience that most towns and villages seemed to be located within a few miles of each fragment’s center, so there was certainly a chance they just missed this one. But seeing as the entire fragment was rather flat, he would have thought that if any sort of settlement existed, they would have been able to see it.

  By the time they reached the edge of the fragment, the sun was already starting to set, which only served as another reminder that the time Alka had left was steadily draining away.

  Thankfully, the next fragment they had to cross through looked rather similar to the one the Earthers had first appeared on. As Vin stepped across the invisible barrier onto plain, grassy terrain and breathed in a welcome breath free of flowery scents, he glanced at his notification.

  Fourth ring fragment discovered! 2,000 exp.

  Just getting further and further, huh?

  A quick glance at his full interface showed that he was actually only a thousand experience shy of his next level up. Level 26 would get him a new skill point at the very least and some more stats, but not much more than that.

  “Okay, this fragment seems pretty normal,” Vin said, breathing in the fresh air once again as he looked around. “…once we cross through-”

  “Hello there friends!”

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