Chapter 1960: Preposterous Man
Narethi turned toward the helm as her gnome began speaking into the distress artifact. Beside the merchantman’s mast, Quinlan finally opened the rewards he had put aside during the battle.
[You’ve slain Fomorian Pirate (Level 85). You’ve gained 8,400,000 XP.]
His gaze stayed on the number.
That had been one of the Fomorians beneath the hull, crushed inside his ice while the others tried to force their way through.
Eight million four hundred thousand.
’Goddess’s Sexy Lacy Panties... Am I under an illusion attack?’
He brought up the next notification.
[You’ve slain Fomorian Pirate (Level 79). You’ve gained 6,900,000 XP.]
’...’
Then another.
[You’ve slain Fomorian Elite (Level 91). You’ve gained 11,200,000 XP.]
’Holy fuck.’
Vex stood beside his crate, one hand resting on his shoulder. To Narethi’s crew, the white-haired woman seemed entirely occupied with watching the sailors clear a fallen spar.
Quinlan kept his face composed beneath his helmet. His women were scattered across the damaged deck, helping where they could while rewards appeared before their eyes.
Lucille accepted a strip of clean cloth from a sailor and began wiping her axe.
The dogkin remained seated beside Aurora, her tail lying carefully along the crate instead of beating it to pieces.
He wanted to laugh. His gorgeous dogkin had enough excitement in her voice to fill the whole harbour they were headed toward.
Quinlan continued through the notifications, reaching the reward for the pirate captain.
[You’ve slain Fomorian Captain (Level 102). You’ve gained 50,000,000 XP.]
For a moment, he forgot the voices in the link.
Fifty million.
The pirate captain who had grazed his thigh was level 102 and had paid him fifty million XP.
Quinlan read it again, remembering the captain’s furious face when his own wave came crashing back down on him. Fighting the Fomorian had already been immensely satisfying. Now the system was giving him this for the pleasure.
He was already addicted to progressing through the levels, but this...
’Injected straight into the veins,’ he chuckled inwardly.
Vex kept her hand on his shoulder while he called up his status.
[Level: 65. XP: 613,004,978 ➣ 713,004,978 / 1,960,534,764]
He checked the difference, including the smaller rewards and the additions from the family’s Bond Pool.
A hundred million XP from the battle.
His bar had advanced by more than five percent. He could see the gain plainly, an entire stretch filled in where the serpent’s reward had made a much smaller change.
All from stopping beside two ships.
Ayame asked.
Her blue eyes remained on the sailor demonstrating how to secure a replacement line. She listened with the polite interest of a visiting noblewoman.
<...We need to find more pirates.>
Quinlan let himself enjoy the number while the crew hauled their remaining sail into position. The strained canvas caught a little wind, and the merchantman began moving away from the wreckage.
They had barely begun exploring Thalorind. Less than one hour’s fighting had given him progress he would otherwise need to spend sleepless days grinding in the labyrinths on Iskaris to earn.
Then his attention returned to the first reward: eight million four hundred thousand.
His pleasure remained, but he found himself studying that figure for a different reason.
General Hargrieve had given him eighty-four thousand five hundred. Quinlan had been considerably weaker then, killing a level-sixty-eight commander while arrows and spells came at him from every direction.
He remembered the notification. At the time, he had been perfectly happy with it.
One level 85 pirate had just paid close to a hundred times as much.
’Well, these bastards were stronger.’
They had been. He had watched them injure his women despite their ambush, and the captain had forced him to work for his openings.
The boss had reached level 102. That put him thirty-seven levels above Quinlan, a gap deserving a substantial reward.
But Quinlan had spent most of his life fighting people who should have killed him.
He had fought with weaker abilities, worse equipment, and far less room to make a mistake. Some victories had left him in pieces. Being outmatched in stats, experience, and numbers was familiar enough that it had stopped feeling remarkable long ago.
Yet the rewards had never looked like this.
His gaze moved toward the sea beyond the rail, where the last patches of blood were thinning behind the ship.
The serpent had only been level seventy.
He had suggested that fighting underwater explained its generous payout. Perhaps the creature itself was rare. Black Fang had listened to both possibilities with the same unconvinced expression before asking for a larger sample.
Now they had killed an entire crew of pirates.
Different enemies, different conditions, and millions kept appearing.
Quinlan looked down at his restored thigh. The captain’s attack had drawn blood, but Seraphiel had closed the scrape with one touch.
He had endured far worse for far less.
’...Strange.’
...
Beneath the edge of Quinlan’s frozen sea, Black Fang watched the merchantman’s keel pass overhead.
She held the Soul Reaper against her chest, its pale fire dimmed along the pitch-black blade. Her other hand gripped the underside of the ice, keeping her below the surface while the ship’s wake tugged at her hair.
Cold water crept beneath her black combat robes whenever she moved. Her fingers ached against the ice, and she drew the saber closer while remembering the look that had put her here.
Quinlan had been standing on the merchant ship, sending the others up to the ship’s rail with his wind. Black Fang had watched him glance across the corpses between each group.
His red eyes had lingered on the captain, then followed the bodies drifting among the wreckage.
𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢
She knew that hunger. The pirates had stopped being useful as opponents, but their souls were still there, waiting to become his soldiers.
He wanted them badly enough that his gaze returned to the dead even while a sailor called over to thank him.
Quinlan had looked at the man, then at the other survivors gathered along the rail. They were watching their rescuer with exhausted gratitude.
Having him rip souls out of the corpses surrounding their ship would give them rather a lot to discuss on the journey home and afterward.
Then his eyes had found hers.
Black Fang remembered how they brightened. He glanced once more at the dead before looking back at her, his head tilting a little as he waited.
Oh, she knew that face.
Synchra covered his mouth, but she could see the smile perfectly in those shameless red eyes. He had found someone who could collect every soul he wanted while he stayed aboard with their new acquaintances.
And now he was looking at her so sweetly, asking her to do it for him without saying a word.
Black Fang had stared back.
His eyes creased with the grin beneath his helmet.
*Splash.*
She had turned toward the sound behind her. The Soul Reaper had flown around her back and dipped its point into the sea beside the ice, its hilt hovering within reach of her hand.
When she looked at Quinlan again, he was still waiting, his gaze warm with the confidence that she understood him.
She did.
The warmth with which he looked at her was making it very difficult to resent how thoroughly he intended to put her to work.
Black Fang had reached down and caught the hilt. His eyes followed her hand, then returned to her face with such open pleasure that she felt it beneath her ribs.
She held his gaze for another moment before slipping into the water. Vex’s [Hex of Null Presence] covered her descent, and Quinlan turned his attention to the people waiting for him aboard.
They had exchanged no words at all.
Now the wake washed cold seawater down Black Fang’s neck while she clung beneath the ice with his precious saber pressed against her.
’The audacity...’
The man was aboard with his wives while she hid in freezing water to keep his necromancy secret from a ship full of strangers.
Black Fang looked down at the weapon in her hand, then up at the departing hull.
Through the clear edge of the ice, she watched the ship’s repaired side rise and fall with the swell as it moved away.
She waited until the stern disappeared beyond the broken mast lying across her view, then lifted herself far enough to breathe behind the wreckage.