Chapter 37: Chapter 37

Nestra watched while Helena engaged in the time-honored tradition of divesting the dead of their belongings. Sadly, this was a relatively benign D-class world and the pickings seemed slim indeed.

That was a first world problem, to be fair. Primitive societies would love to recover the high purity metal contained in the fallen warriors’ weapons and armor. In Threshold, they would be absolutely useless. The city mined its own minerals in special enclaves, recurring portals, and it recycled a lot as well. Nevertheless, Helena was consciously piling all the shinies in a single pile.

She finally hit something valuable.

“Gold!” she exclaimed.

The leader had a single, tiny bar of the precious metal engraved with a really stylistic depiction of a bird. Or maybe it was a really ugly leaf. Nestra couldn’t tell.

“Yes! Gold. It’s worth something, right?” Helena asked.

“Enchanters use it a lot, and gold found in portals often have some properties so… this is probably worth a couple hundred creds. The bar is just very small and the purity doesn’t seem very high. You can give it to me and I’ll sell it on the black market. Return the cash.”

“No, I want to keep it. This is my first portal world. I’m clearing it with you, my sister, the gray demon, and that’s the most wired thing ever. Yeah, I’ll keep it as a souvenir. First trophy yay! I won’t get in trouble, right?”

“Just hide it from mom and dad. You… can do that, right?”

Helena cut down two spearmen blocking her way, using her strength and non infused attacks. The fae tried to deflect her strikes but there was just a lot of power behind each one and they fell, overwhelmed before they could bring their techniques to bear. The captain gave Nestra one last furious glance before charging down the slope towards the roaring axe girl challenging him. Nestra used the opportunity to finish her sweep, all the while following the duel as it progressed.

The noble fae deflected Helena’s first assault with a flick of his spear. He was obviously proficient at fighting against a superior opponent but Helena was expecting it. Her strikes were precise enough to make every parry difficult. Nestra saw the pained fury on the captain’s twisted features every time an attack made his lithe arms shudder. Helena wasn’t using coating yet. She was saving mana for a finishing blow.

The result was that Helena’s training axe was getting damaged. With every deflection, the fae’s enchanted spear bit more into the axe’s blade. Helena didn’t care or maybe she didn’t notice. Nestra believed the girl had a plan, and her patience was rewarded. With a savage blow, the noble managed to cut a piece off of Helena’s axe.

Helena didn’t stop. She flipped the axe and bashed the surprised noble with the haft, sending him crashing backward. She was on him in an instant. Her axe went up, then down, engulfed in void energy.

This was where the fae superiority shone. The noble dropped his spear and surged forward, blocking the blow with a vambrace. In the same, smooth movement, he managed to lodge the enchanted piece of armor exactly where Helena’s axe showed damage. Gossamer energy fought against the fizzling void and still lost. Blood, crimson and vibrant, sprayed from the wound but the noble had gained breathing room. His hand went for a sheath hidden near his waist.

Nestra used momentum to jump forward just as Sashimi dove but she got there first. She managed to grab the noble’s hand before the enchanted dagger could burrow itself in her sister’s guts.

Then, Nestra hesitated.

And she let the arm go.

The enchanted blade dug into Helena’s flank, now with much less momentum. It pierced the training armor like butter and when Helena moved back, blood dripped from the gash. Her sister roared and struck again, then again. The noble had gambled everything on the maneuver and failed to take her down. Helena gave him no chance to get the initiative back. She smashed through the chestplate on the third strike, and cleaved the head on the fourth.

The noble was dead. Nestra felt no energy but that was fine. She was just glad that Helena had triumphed, sweaty, breathing hard and obviously mana-starved but victorious nonetheless.

The noble’s corpse was absolutely mangled though. Really, Helena was not afraid of getting her hands dirty.

“Wooooh that wasn’t easy. Wow! I got him good though, right?”

“Yes, and I am very impressed by the way you didn’t panic when you got wounded. Many people would flinch and hesitate, but you—”

“I’m wounded?” Helena asked, face an expression of panicked bafflement.

“I’m wounded? Where? Aaaaah I’m bleeding! Well, it doesn’t look so bad.”

Helena put a finger in the gash of her armor, pulling it wet with her blood. She smudged it a bit on her glove.

“Huh. Ow. Owowowow. Ok, ok, I feel it now. It’s not bad though, right?”

“Nope, and we have potions.”

She stood up, a bit hesitantly. She breathed deep a couple of times, then winced. The exit portal opened inside of the tent.

“Don’t you want to loot first? Actually, don’t you want to drink a potion first?”

“This is nothing. I got worse in training.”

The sentence bounced around Nestra’s brain three times before it suddenly clicked.

“What do you mean, you got worse in training?”

Helena blushed, caught.

“Oh, you know, sparring can get a little rough.”

Nestra knew very well that it didn’t. Schools were very specific about keeping their students healthy if only because healing liquids were rather expensive and in limited supply, not to mention wounded students had to stop training for a little while. It was a big fat lie.

“I don’t want to talk about it, ok? I just want to raid in peace. With you.”

Nestra wanted to push a bit. Was Helena being bullied? Maybe? Her sister’s mulish expression told her the girl had clammed up tight and it would be of no use to pressure her now.

“Sure, ok. Here, drink this. And you can talk to me whenever.”

“Thanks. And it’s nothing too bad, just kid rivalries. I’m fine.”

Helena tried her best to sound dismissive but Nestra wasn’t fooled. Her reaction was too intense for it not to be bothering her. It still wouldn’t help to pressure her right now. Helena was already a boiling pot of emotions right now.

“I am! Really!” Helena exploded.

And here it was, Nestra thought. Her sister calmed down and took a deep breath immediately after, however. That therapist must have taught her how to do that. It was rather impressive.

“Sorry. Anyway, it was really fun. Damn, those potions taste like ass.”

“Defective batch. They were supposed to taste like mint.”

“Like mint? Damn I’m happy they taste like ass instead. Anyway, go back?”

In the end, the harvest proved surprisingly good, including some special fruits and fae military rations humans could eat. The fruits were already cultivated and sold by the Baihua corp thanks to looted seeds, but those bastards charged an arm for a small basket so it was a good haul anyway. The spear was a minor artefact Helena intended to sell for a better, secret axe.

“Won’t you get in trouble for damaging the equipment?” Nestra asked.

“You mean like I already destroyed seven axes fucking up the coating? I’ll be fine. I’ll just fix the armor myself. Oh, can we do anything with the fae armor? It’s enchanted.”

The multicolored piece of armor was an artefact, though it was extremely weak. It would fit a child if the kid was awakened and someone wanted to do a ‘bring your kid to work’ day in a portal world and they repaired the massive damage first. Nestra told Helena as much.

“In other words, it’s fucking useless, yea?”

“We can always sell it for research. Or to a collector. I guess. Or I could take it off your hands because I have a use for it.”

“What kind of use? A little too small for cosplay, no?”

“My err, it’s hard to explain but I’ll try. You see my body suit?”

“You mean the skin suit that leaves your feet bare and sticks to your tits a bit indecently?”

“Oh I’m sorry for not being a paragon of fashionable modesty while I wade knees deep in monster guts. Anyway, yes, that, it’s actually a symbiote. It eats armor to grow.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“And it drinks some blood as well.”

“You’re either fucking with me or this is like the most wired thing ever. Show me.”

Nestra grabbed the mangle piece, feeling her Skin shift and hunger like a waking snake. She brought it to her chest.

Ripples in the fabric of space. A hell of inward-facing teeth, extending to infinity. A tongue that peeled the soul, eyes like apertures into insanity. Slavering planetoids shoved through the eye of a needle. Cracks where a thousand maws closed. A sigh of contentment like thunder in a tiny bowl.

Reality reasserted itself.

The Skin extended to wrap around the arches of Nestra’s feet, leaving the toes and heel bare.

“Well, it’s progress.”

“Ooooh wow. What a day.”

“Go back and have a picnic?”

“Sure. Do you have booze?”

“How old are you again?”

“I think I just saw space shit itself.”

“But not time so you’re still underage.”

The beat officer walked into the empty hospital, lured in by the salivating smell. Something was wrong. There should be no one in here, and in Threshold, unusual smells could be the only hints one would get before a hidden portal breached. It was probably hobos grilling sausages over a barrel fire but… better be sure. And besides, it smelled too good to be secret meat.

She called it in and took out her service weapon, just in case. If it was hobos, they would be a little scared. If it was a break, she could unload it into a dokkaebi and run.

If it was a D-class monster, the city would be safer for her sacrifice.

She gulped with some difficulty. Her steps carried her through an underground parking lot. Shadows crawled around her. Any moment now, claws would close around her neck. She felt much better when the ground rose towards a small, half-dry garden.

The smell came from a fire and she spotted its smoke in the inner courtyard. There was the top of a human head there as well, with blonde hair and a jacket.

The officer breathed a sigh of relief, then she stopped, unsure what to do with the scene.

A merry fire roared in the empty clearing, and two women sat around it. A blonde one with gray eyes slathered chili oil over chunks of juicy pale meat which she then laid on a grill while a younger, dark-haired girl chewed on a vibrantly green fruit.

It was the most bizarre sight she’d ever seen.

The two were obviously related. Also, the younger one was a gleam. She hadn’t noticed at first because her eyes were so dark but the shine was there. They were eating here of all places? The amount of food piled to the side showed they had enough to feed a dozen people.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

The delivery was matter of fact. The voices, eerily similar. There was nothing humorous about their tones. It was like entering a tiger enclosure and they watched you but didn’t move yet. The younger one felt more rebellious while the older was uncaring, and though she wasn’t a gleam, she somehow felt more dangerous. Too calm.

“You can’t be here, you’re trespassing.”

“Nope, this is state property and legally the hospital never fully closed so we are, in fact, not trespassing,” the blonde calmly replied.

“This is ridiculous. The hospital is clearly abandoned. I will ask you to leave.”

“What’s your fucking problem?” the gleam erupted. “We’re not doing anything wrong! Why don’t you—”

“What my sister is trying to say,” the non gleam clearly interrupted.

Sister? Oh, some baseline parents were starting to have gleam kids. Made sense. Maybe they were hiding because of personal issues.

“Is that we are trying to have a family moment here and we are not bothering anyone. Could you please let us finish? We will clean after ourselves and not bother anyone.”

The gleam smoldered in her corner, vengefully biting on her fruit. She cast the officer a dark glare as if daring her to object. The blonde woman was still the very image of detached disinterest.

Well, it was weird but not worth anything except for a report at the station. Just in case.

“Can I ask to see some ID? Then I’ll leave you alone.”

“Sure,” the blonde woman said, then she gave the officer a genuine police badge.

“The rat squad? Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to—”

“That’s ok, and I didn’t want to show you before because I didn’t want to pull rank.”

“I see. Well, I’ll leave you to it then. Please don’t litter.”

“I promise. Would you like a skewer?”