Chapter 220: Cooking Dragons (1/2)

Pushing out all the air from her lungs, Ilea stopped healing the wounds piercing her chest, instead ripping out the ice spears to allow the flow of water to occur more quickly. It did put a smile on her face that William had to use stronger attacks to even pierce her skin at this point, making him at least put in some effort. She told him to stop and recover when he ran out of mana but he was at least somewhat proud of his abilities it seemed, the man sweating when the nearly unconscious Ilea dropped to the ground, heaving before she started coughing, water and blood running out of the wounds on her body.

She was wearing shorts and a now ruined bra that reminded her more of a sports bra. Sadly they didn’t have any similar fabric here but simple cloth did the trick. She wasn’t exactly the bustiest woman around after all. A good thing as it wasn’t conductive to close combat fighting at all.

‘ding’ ‘You have learned the General skill: Harmony of the Drowned – lvl 1

You have been submerged in liquid for longer than you should’ve survived. You crave to become a creature of the deep and have proven that you will go any lengths to achieve that. While your biology doesn’t strictly allow for gills, magic has its ways. You can stay submerged in liquid for much longer.’

“Fucking…,” Ilea said and continued coughing, healing the pierced flesh before she tried to get up, slipping on water and her own blood. “… finally.” She finished, lying on her back as her lungs reformed, the muscles around them closing up to allow for breathing again.

“You got something? About damn time woman.” William said and got up, gathering his documents. “Which skill did you acquire?”

“Harmony of the Drowned.” Ilea said as he raised his eyebrows.

“Interesting. So you really do have no talent for the element of water.” He said. “Luckily it’s still one of the better skills to help you survive. There was no chance of you switching to another element anyway.”

“What do you mean switching?” Ilea asked as she got up, drying herself with one of the prepared towels that was still clean and dry.

“Changing your class from the dreadful ashen magic to something more civilized.” William said and looked at her with a haughty expression.

“Are you trying to start a fight with me William dear?” Ilea asked and saw the minuscule grin that came to his face before it was smashed away by his insurmountable professionalism.

“I have faced enough beasts for a while Miss Spears.” He said and made his way to the exit.

“Nothing else related to underwater survival you can teach me?” She asked, drying her face.

“You are a practical learner. I believe you now have the tools. Already you would challenge the toughest creatures I’ve ever hunted underwater. I daresay I can’t teach you more, not without a related class.” He explained. “Your tenacity at least, is commendable.” The man added and left.

“That’s the praise I get after what I went through for three weeks? Man I pity whatever poor soul would be his apprentice.” Ilea said to herself and finished up, stealing a couple more leather armors form the storage room each training hall had. She was glad they restocked them time and time again.

I did pay a hundred gold coins to join after all. And it wasn’t exactly expected that someone would go through several dozen of them per week. Knowing the cost of a good set of leather armor Ilea definitely preferred to get the free ones as long as she still could.

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“You’re aware that it costs a silver per hour, even if you’re just watching?” The man asked his teammate who had read the same notice Keyla had just went through. One of the two eyed her but didn’t say anything, he only stared at her scaly feet. She tried to retract her claws as far as possible.

“Excuse me.” She spoke up and turned to the man, her reptile like eyes blinking. The man looked at her but didn’t seem repulsed. He’s waiting for a question you idiot. She thought.

“Have you been there before? Is it worth it? To level skills I mean.” The cook asked.

“Of course it is. It’s a Shadow and she can heal herself almost immediately. I even thought about dropping my second class and restarting as a healer myself.” The man explained, getting a smack on the head by his friend.

“You won’t do that idiot, we need you at your highest level otherwise we won’t be able to explore near the cliffs anymore. You have no knack for magic anyway.”

“You don’t know that.” The first one retorted before they started going into arguments about their team’s healer. Keyla ignored them and looked through the notice again. There was nothing mentioned regarding requirements, only the cost of a single silver per hour. She still had some money left, nearly sixty silver but while the investment was steep, maybe it would allow her to get a little more preparation before she went hunting again.

Leaving the adventurer’s guild, she made her way to the designated location. The new walls were a little irritating as she got side glances from nearly all the guards. They would know her in time but it had taken quite a while to get the trust of the previous guard. Going through the gate, one of them stopped her. Here we go.

“Show me your face please. Are you a lizardman?” The man asked, one of his hands on the handle of his sword. The other guard previously uninterested in the conversation, leaning on his spear butted in.

“Leave it alone man. We’re not in the western shit lands where you’re a dick to non humans.” He said.

“I’m just doing my job. Can I see your face?” The man asked again, Keyla pulling back her hood to reveal the scales and two small horns growing from the sides of her head.

“What in the fuck are you?” The guard asked, unsheathing a part of his sword when the spear man intervened.

“She’s a Breed. I’ve seen some of them before, don’t wet your pants. Where are you from?” He asked.

“I’m from Ravenhall.” Keyla replied, not trying to sound confrontational.

“You’re a fucking liar is what you are. We’ll have to ask you some more questions.” The man said but the spear man looked nearly as irritated now as Keyla was. Of course she had handled countless situations like this before but she had thought she was beyond that now.

Apparently not. She thought. With the imperial law she’d be questioned and let go after a couple hours, maybe two days at most. Not the worst but it was time she couldn’t use to work or hunt. With how filled the streets were with streetfood vendors already she’d be hard pressed to find a spot. People didn’t want to buy from a Breed, not if they knew one of them was cooking their food.

“Why would you want an explosive rune that can’t be thrown or set off from a distance?” A voice behind her asked, the two guards moving their attention to whoever was talking.

“Experience.” The reply came and Keyla’s world seemed to freeze.

Is that?

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“Trust me, sometimes you just have to explode to get out of a situation.” Ilea said to the hunter and enchanter next to her, the man frowning at the thought.

“I’d just use something like corrosion instead but if you can’t control it I guess an explosion is better. Very unsafe of course.” Philipp said and shook his head. “I guess I can make you something like that if you really want to. An explosion or fire mage would be better though if you know one that can enchant as well.”

“You think so? I actually know one.” Ilea said when they came up on the gate, some lizardman blocking the way as the two guards looked at them in awe. Hey wait a second. Ilea thought, looking at the lizardman through her Sphere.

“Are those horns? Hey do I know you?” Ilea asked, walking around the lizardman who seemed frozen in place.

“We wanted to take it in for questioning.” One of the guards said as Ilea crouched to look up the lizard’s hood.

“Ok help me out here, I’m bad at lizard faces.” She said and got a smack from the lizardman.

“We’re called Breed you damn idiot.” The Breed said. “And yes, I know you.”