Chapter 23: Rot Deer

The next week went as well as it could have, all things considered. Every morning, I hauled water from the small stream near the camp up to our water barrels, filling them for the day. I got started as soon as the sun rose, and there was barely time for breakfast afterward—we had to set off for our Watchtower Report immediately.

The rest of the squad regarded me with coldness. I’d gotten them in trouble and made them wake up early, and I’d roped them into making daily treks out of the watchtower for my own ends. Plus, every day when we reached the watchtower, I made sure to thank them for not telling Galliard about what I was doing.

And hey, at least Ticks didn’t seem any angrier than usual.

This time, I refused to let it get to me. These four just wanted to go about their lives, be left alone. That also meant that eventually, I was going to have to leave them behind. We just didn’t want the same things.

For the coming week, I used the Labyrinth as best as I could. My goal was to get a Skill merge, so that meant I needed to work on accumulating more fodder SkilIs. I had a week and a half until I had to give up the watchtower report daily task, so I was going to accumulate as many Skills as I could before then. They’d make the best fodder for whatever I wanted to merge.

That led to a number of encounters that, for sake of brevity, could have gone better. In retrospect, they made me want to laugh, but at the time, were nothing short of disastrous. Trying to whittle wood while dodging a ruin-hound’s teeth was certainly one way of tricking the System into granting me more Skills. Trying to peel a few potatoes that I’d snuck from the camp earlier while perching atop a ruined pillar led to me nearly cutting off my fingers (and giving myself a deep cut that I needed to get Hild to look at). Trying to emboss the leather straps of my armour with a wooden dowel made me wish I had a thimble to protect my finger.

All in all, I was hoping to accumulate a set of generic crafting Skills that would merge together into a couple higher-tier Skills. I wanted two merges—one to practice, and one to get myself an Art.

And on top of it all, I didn’t want to consume my weapon Skills. There was no way I’d give up [Spearmanship], and although I didn’t have a bow, [Archery] would be incredibly useful. So I couldn’t get rid of those. I needed the option to either resonate a weapon Skill or use an Art.

Through the week, I also began hunting and killing the ruin-hounds and fell-foxes. They were the monsters that I’d gathered the most of inside the Labyrinth, and they were generally weak. I couldn’t say for sure, but they were either Copper- or Iron-equivalent.

When I only had four days left, and a bag-full of presences from all the ruin-hounds I’d slain, I had to go after the stronger monsters I’d lured into the Labyrinth.

There were three: the undead deer, a pair of direboar, and a mud wraith. I couldn’t say exactly what the mud wraith was, but it had a vague shape of a woman—except made entirely from mud and tatters of fabric. It didn’t speak, it didn’t even have a mouth, but it had two glowing blue eyes.

I’d defeat one a day, I promised myself. Nothing fancy. If all went as planned, and if I had estimated correctly, I’d gathered enough Skills now to finish my merges. I just needed the Presence.

I began with the undead deer—the one with mushrooms growing on its antlers. Attaching my buglight to the side of my helmet, I stepped into the room where I’d left the deer, only to find it feeding on a line of Labyrinth Keepers. The little bugs were crawling down the wall, and it lapped them up like they were ants on a tree.

It was a Steel-tier equivalent beast. Significantly stronger than Iron. Still, at the low tiers, it was easy to punch above your weight. As you climbed through the ranks, it became more and more difficult to punch up, just because of the vast differences between the tiers. This deer had the equivalent of ten Presence and fifty attribute points spread out across its attributes. (At first, I’d thought it might have been a hundred, but apparently, you only needed fifty to get to Steel.)

I approached softly, trying to use [Stealth], holding my spear ahead of me. But my foot tripped over a ledge. There was a hole in the floor where a trap had once been, and it took all of my effort to right myself.

That meant making my spear clack against the stone ledge in front of me. I pushed myself upright again, but the deer had already turned to face me.

It lowered its antlers like it was preparing to gore me, so I leapt to the side—and just in time. The beast shot forward in a puff of black dust and emerged right where I was standing.

“So they can teleport,” I muttered as I regained my footing.

Lunging, I tried to jab the deer in the flank, but it turned, catching my raised forearms with its antlers. The impact flung me across the room, and I fell down into another already-activated trap. There was a set of spikes at the bottom, and the Labyrinth Keepers were already resetting it.

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I caught the ledge with the tips of my fingers and hauled myself up. The deer was stronger than I thought, and where its antlers had touched my bracers, the metal was already beginning to decay. Black ash ate through it, disintegrating the metal and turning it to dust.

I grimaced. “Sorry, Maurifus.” They weren’t useless, but they now had two massive gashes across their front.

I glanced back at the deer. Maybe I could get Maurifus to make something with those antlers. Assuming I ever found a way to touch them with my bare hands—

I cut myself off mid-thought. I was getting ahead of myself. First, I had to actually kill the deer. It was already turning toward me, and it lowered its antlers, preparing for another charge.

I was ready this time, and I darted only two steps to the side, dodging the antlers but not far enough away that I couldn’t stab it. I jabbed my spear into its flank three times, then four times, but that wasn’t enough. It didn’t seem to do anything—or even faze the deer.

The beast kicked out with its hind legs, catching me in the chest with its hooves and sending me flying across the room again. The scale mail spread out the impact, saving my bones from breaking, and the chainmail and gambeson layers beneath made it feel like I’d only been gently tapped—even if it did send me flying off my feet. My helmet clattered along the floor, protecting my head.

I jumped back to my feet and tightened my helmet to my head, then gave my spear a whirl. The deer was still standing, despite how much I’d stabbed it.

“Of course it is, idiot,” I muttered to myself. “It’s undead.”

At the very least, I had to take off its head. Something like that. I didn’t know exactly how undead worked here, but the chances of killing it by taking off its head were higher than just stabbing it over and over again.