Chapter 62: Basement Dwellers (1/2)

“Hit?” Junior asked him, its blue jelly protegee resting on its sword lure.

“With one of your natural Perks,” Victor explained, resting on an armchair in his manor’s hall, next to the fireplace. He kept his new scythe, and the bazooka, on each side. “Nothing too painful, after I prepare myself mentally—”

The blue jelly nodded at each of his words.

Then it jumped and hit him in the eye through his helmet’s chinks!

Victor let out a scream of surprise and pain, as the critter bounced off his face and landed again on Junior’s back.

[Troll Regeneration] activated! You gained the [Regen] Status.

Congratulations! You learned the [Slime-Slam] Personal Perk!

[Slime-Slam]: Technique. You can jump up to ten times your size and launch yourself at an opponent, inflicting weak physical damage.

“Hurt?” Junior asked, sounding concerned. Over time, the mimic had grown almost as loyal as a cat to its food source.

“What the BLEEP does it look like!?” Victor replied, although his eye had already recovered thanks to his regeneration.

You have recovered all of your HP.

Petting Junior’s back with one hand, the mimic purring in response, Victor glanced through the windows, where the sun had slowly vanished beyond the mountains. Night would fall soon; the perfect time for another attack.

His priests had set wards around the mansion, to prevent new undead—outside of the staff and some members of the Raptor Rangers— from getting in. While Lavere might disable them, she would have to activate an alarm. The cult of the Moon Man had taken upon itself to protect his house, forming a formidable defense.

Finally, he had an army of cultists worthy of his spooky mansion.

Speaking of armies, Kia chose this time to walk into the hall with company.

“Tadaa!” the Paladin said, as she presented him the new and improved raptor rangers; each of them now wore light, dwarf-made armor, swords, and whips. “Here’s your new Vampire Hunter squad!”

“Only the dead can know the true power of dooooooom,” Yellow said with his guttural voice.

“With the [Monster Squire] level we received from the chief, we finally found our toku-theme,” Red said, gleeful. “Vampire Knights!”

“The Knights of Vainqueur!” Pink added tears of joy in her eyes.

“Good, but give me just a sec,” Victor said while rising out of his chair, before using [Monster Insight] on Kia.

Kia Bekele

Angel-Blessed Human (Humanoid/Angel)

Weak against: alcohol, depression, boredom.

Strong against: everything else (epic level, duh!).

The most dangerous game in the world, a two-legged predator from the alien, unforgiving world of Earth. What this fearsome mammal lacks in strength, it more than makes up in fiendish intelligence, ruthlessness, and numbers; and their body is made of carbon. Carbon! Like diamonds!

Left to themselves, these bloodthirsty primates can conquer entire worlds with the power of SCIENCE, devastate ecosystems, and kill anything that crosses their path. You don’t BLEEP them; they BLEEP you. Then they make wallets out of your skin!

In short, it’s a human woman. Also, angel-blessed.

No Doppelgangers. Good. He checked every member of the Kobold Rangers, sighing in relief.

“Wait, have you just used your scanning Perk on us?” Kia said, putting her armored hands on her hips. “That’s racial profiling!”

“You did it the first time we met!” Victor complained back. “The Nightblades have Doppelgangers, they could slip in assassins among you.”

“I stopped karma scanning people after you pointed out its implications,” Kia replied. “And I have the [Eye of Mithras] Perk. While it won’t detect any physical change, I can see through invisibility and illusions. Like the invisible bat over here.”

As she said these words, Victor heard a sound in a corner of the room. Kia pointed a finger, firing a small dagger of light from it, which impaled an invisible creature and nailed it to the wall. The Vizier watched, amazed, as a monstrous bat materialized before his eyes, impaled like a hunting trophy.

“How long was it in the room?” he asked, Junior growling at the beast.

“Too long,” Kia replied. “It’s a Vampire Familiar. Nothing on its own, but it can slip into almost everywhere.”

The fact the Nightblades had slipped a spy in his home didn’t surprise Victor, but it certainly disturbed him. “If you could check the rest of the mansion afterward, that would be great. Have you sent the message I asked for?”

“Of course, and Kevin is already working on it. Has your training progressed?”

“It did.” Victor looked at the list of Perks he gathered over the last two days.

[Dragonfire (Wyrmling)], [Brain Blast], [Slime Armor], [Venom Fang], [Ghoul Fever], [Hundred Needles], [Dark Thorns], [Shock], [Bullet Fist], [Raptor Burst], [Angel Heart], [Ghost Grudge], [Troll Regeneration], [WAZZAAA!], [Slime-Slam].

Truth to be told, he could scarcely remember what half of them did. This was going to be a nightmare to manage, especially with the Necromancy buffs he learned to practice. “[Brain Blast] inflicts weak psychic damage, [Hundred Needles] weak plant damage, [Bullet Fist] weak physical damage, [Shock] weak lightning…”

“So a variety of weak, forgettable attacks?” Kia didn’t sound impressed. At all.

Unfortunately, she had a point. Most of the Perks also lacked in strength, since none of the monsters in Murmurin could rival the likes of Furibon in power.

Monster Knight was truly the swiss army knife of classes though. He wondered how many Perks he could learn...

Congratulations! For learning over 15 Monster Perks through a grueling training method, you have earned the [Perk Forge] Personal Perk!

[Perk Forge]: You can fuse various monster Perks into a single, stronger one; however, you will permanently lose access to the Perk components and cannot relearn them.

The more he learned, the more Victor had grown convinced the System somehow encouraged specialization. “Hey, I can fuse Monster Perks now.”

“How many of them at once?” Kia asked, curious, while Junior moved to chew the bat in a corner.

“I dunno, it isn’t mentioned.”

“Why not all of them then?” Kia proposed. “You could end up with either the most overpowered ability ever… or a fusion accident.”

Since he lost the components permanently, Victor couldn’t risk sacrificing highly powerful abilities like [Black Curse]. He could try Kia’s idea, but he would first test this Perk by using components with good synergy.

Well then, Victor decided to combine [ChannelHellfire (Minor)] with [Dragonfire (Wyrmling)], since he had absolutely no intention of going through Vainqueur’s breath again. Dragonfire hurt a lot more than normal flames, and even Victor had his limits.

Choice registered. You combined [Channel Hellfire (Minor)] and [Dragonbreath (Wyrmling)] into [Blackfyre].

[Blackfyre]: Technique, 1 SP per second. You can unleash a shadowy, infernal fire from your hands, feet, or mouth; half of the damage is [Dragon] type, and the other [Unholy]. This technique will thus bypass [Fire] resistance. When you would deal fire damage through a spell or a technique, it will now inflict an additional 20 percent [Unholy] damage.

Nice, but not game-changing. The fact it cost less than both its component techniques meant Victor should not run out of SP in the middle of a battle like he did against the adventurers.

Alright, time to test Kia’s hypothesis. He decided to sacrifice most of the weaker perks, keeping only the truly useful [Troll Regeneration] and [Black Curse].

Choice registered. You combined [Silverfang], [Brain Blast], [Slime Armor], [Venom Fang], [Ghoul Fever], [Hundred Needles], [Dark Thorns], [Shock], [Bullet Fist], [Raptor Burst], [Angel Heart], [Ghost Grudge], [WAZZAAA!], and [Slime-Slam] into: [Darwinist].

[Darwinist]: When targeted by a creature type-dependent effect (such as [Undead] or [Dragon]), you always count as the most advantageous type or type-combination for the purpose of resolving that effect; your species will not change, but the system will temporarily register you as a different type. Elements affected by this Perk include Weapons, Perks, Spells, Field Effects...

“Wait, that is all?” Victor asked, disappointed. It could definitely have its use, but he had expected something more visually impressive. “More than ten perks for this?”

“Fusion accident it is.”

Charisma check successful!

Huh?

Someone knocked on the hall’s door. “Enter,” Victor said, allowing Chocolatine and Allison to enter.

“Hi, Vic.” The werewolf waved a hand at him, although less cheerfully than usual.

“The wards are secured,” Allison said, Victor having tasked her with overseeing his home’s security.

“Yeah, well, one bat managed to slip through.” The Grand Vizier pointed at the bloody splat on the wall, Junior having finished chewing it.

“It must have been inside the mansion before I set the protections,” the dryad defended herself. “They may have watched you for longer than I did.”

Yeah… Victor used his [Monster Insight] Perk on both, just in case. This whole misadventure had made him paranoid.

Allison Lys

Dryad (Plant/Fairy).

Strong against: Plant, Water, Fairy, Disease, Life, Insta-Death, Paralysis.

Weak to: Fire, Frost, Flowerslayer, Fairyslayer, Lightning, Poison.