The Novel's Sidekick

Q: Who created False-Ward?

A: Professor Club.

- - -

The sun eventually sat, and my work was almost done. I found nothing else after hunting the wolf, though I was not unsatisfied. So I moved towards the direction my other two companions left in the search. I wondered what the other two found so far, though I had no high hopes for them.

Elinor might be the protagonist, but she would only bring bad luck if it follows the rules of the book. Well, danger and opportunity walk hand in hand. Like once she got Scar a Dominion, or the Orb of Colours for Ciara. But I can't actually wait for her to get into danger to find the treasure. I have to do it for myself. At least, for the dominion part.

Unconsciously, my eyes drifted towards the north on the snow-filled white cliff of the mountains.

Just as I thought about it, bad luck really caught up with our protagonist as I saw the two frail figures moving towards me, gasping for breaths. I did not need to look for more to notice it was Julies and Elinor—they were rushing away from something, though I saw no wild animal after them.

Still, I brought out my sword, when I heard Julies say:

"Boss, run away. There are hundreds of hunter bees after us."

I narrowed my eyes at once while my ears picked up the buzzing of the bees first. Though in the dark, it was almost impossible to see it; I managed to make out the bees moving behind. I sheath my sword as it would not be of any use against the bees, and started running, though I kept my speed slow for the other two to catch up.

"Are you two alright? How many of them sting you?" I could not help but ask.

"I'm good," Julies said, gesturing towards Elinor. "But she's not. She already got a few stings."

"How did you two mess up with these bees?" I asked. If it was some wolves or other animal, I could have said nothing, but these bees are far harder to deal with and it's not that they were not deadly. A couple of strings could kill a normal person if not treated within time or they were unlucky. While as a spirit practitioner, it was a dozen of stings or more according to the resistance. Though there were various other side effects.

"I was cutting the golden vines from the Azarth tree," Julies shouted. "But I failed to see the beehive there."

"You have no sense," I snarled at him. Moreover, they seemed to lose their bags as well where they were gathering the herbs, though the baldy had a golden vine on his neck. "You don't know hunter bees like to make their hive near the golden root to suck the juices from there?"

I heard nothing from Julies but a painful scream from Elinor. A bee seemed to sting her even with Julies, helping her all the way he could to protect the frail girl.

"Talkin' ain't gonna solve anything," my underling said. "Why don't you burn them alive, boss?"

"I could, but it would be really difficult to burn them all out with my control," I said. "The hunter bees have a good instinct. They would move away the moment I fired at them."

"We ain't got no better option than that," Julies said. He was almost safe from the bites of the bees as he had coated a thin layer of spirit force surrounding his body, though it would be a problem if several of the bees came to bite him together.

On the other hand, I had not learned to do that yet. I reckoned it would take me a couple of weeks to learn the basic coating skill, though I could try some half-assed lump of spirit force around my body. It would have been a lot easier if I had less spirit energy. Well, I wasn't complaining about having more spirit energy than my peers; it was just that the more force you have, the harder it is to control them.

Still, I did infuse spirit energy to protect some parts of my body which would be super awkward if stung by the bees. Unexpectedly, an outrageous plan came to my mind.

"Alright then, Julies, bring that girl away when I fire at the bees," I yelled at them while imagining the flames. I got a magnificent plan to exterminate the bees, though I only hope that I would get an ample amount of destiny points from it.

I have B- in spirit force. The sheer amount of that number was high enough to become an adept magus or sorcerer if not for my weak control and no mastery in the art. Fortunately, the normal usage of purgatory only had side effects on my channels; it did not burn me or my clothes if I used it efficiently. I swirled the spirit energy I could and tried to form the flames, though I did not give it the sign to let out of my body.

I waited for the bees to come at me and it did not take long as one of the bees tried to sting right at my neck. It was a worse place to get stung by a bee, luckily, I already infused a lump of spirit force there, as the sting could not stab my skin. Unfortunately, my arms were not safe, nor was my face. A couple of the hunter bees got what they intended, one at my arm and the other at the cheek.

Tens of bees were coming at me like I was their free meal. As I felt the agony, I let out the scarlet Flames of purgatory, surrounding the three-metre of my radius.

I actually used my body as bait to burn these freaking bees. Those that were close to me burned at once, including the ones that stung me. Within a second, I burned out hundreds of bees and I still have a lot of spirit force left.

I had not given it all like the other time with the ghoul, because I knew I could not finish all the bees at once. As I heard no bees nearby, I stopped the fire. After a few times of usage of the ability, I could manage to put a leash on the purgatory before it ran rampant.

"Hey," I screamed to call the bees. "Come on, sting me again. I am waiting. Fu*king stupid bees."

The finger-sized hunter bees did come after only a few seconds, forgetting what happened to their colleagues a moment ago. These bees are so stupid. Well, so am I.

I repeated the same thing again when another bee stung me. Scarlet fire lit up in the darkness, and I saw the bees turning into ashes. It was a satisfying scene to watch. After all, they just stung me, but still, somehow, I felt stupid. Sadly, the little healing of Purgatory does no work when I am using it is another thing.

Moreover, purgatory disrupts the flow of other skills as it is greedy for the spirit force, greedy to consume anything and everything. The lumps of coating I created broke, leaving me wide open for the bees.

Why do I do this?

Scar fights out with such charisma and skill, where here I'm using myself as bait to kill these bees. Though I'm sure even Scar would choose something like this if he was in my shoes.

I stopped the fire again and breathed in and out to calm my heart. I still have three-quarters of spirit inside me, so I could repeat it a few more times more, though thinking about one of two hunter bee stingings every time made me tremble.

Still, I continued with the process. Purgatory was still so useful when it's barely at mastery level D-, I wonder how freaking powerful I will be if I managed to link it to the spiritual force of the realm. Though I need to learn Thaumaturgy before I can do that. It was not a wrong decision to get into the magic department, after all.

Scar was an overpowered character, but he never learned to link purgatory with the world's spiritual force. All the difference he made was with the sword and his mastery over the dominions.

I stopped the flame again and screamed at the bees that were still within the areas, though I reckoned I already finished two-thirds of them. Yet they still came at me as I'm their archenemy. The few that stung me already released their pheromone to attract more bees towards me. Now it was just: do or die to me, though the bees would be the only ones to die.

I had repeated that eight times and got stung by nine bees before I found Julies running in. He screamed just as he saw me.

"Boss, what happened to your handsome face?"

"Can't you guess?" I said and felt a headache incoming. My legs felt weak while the stiff wind did not affect me, with the burning I'm feeling. Luckily, the healing of purgatory was working to relieve my pain. "I really did a stupid thing, didn't I?!"

Julies did not answer and got near me. "Can you walk?" he asked, though he shouldered me first and got back to moving away from there.

- - -