Chapter 109: The Tale of Fort Defal
The silence that followed the Duchess's question was absolute. It was the quiet of a held breath, of a blade balanced on its edge before the fall. All the power in the room, the Guild Master's sharp intellect, the City Lord's brute authority, the Duchess's regal allure, even the twins' petty malice, coalesced into a single, pressing weight upon me. The System's prompt burned in my vision, a silent, digital ultimatum.
Ten days.
I needed to think. But thought was a luxury the room, and the System, seemed intent on denying me.
My gaze traveled across their faces. Guild Master Valerius, a statue of patient assessment. City Lord Boromir, a mountain waiting to see which way the land would slide. The Duchess, Helena, her beauty a distraction from the steel in her eyes. The twins, already bored, already dismissing me as a foregone conclusion, a pawn to be moved.
Then I looked at Freya.
She stood by the door, a pillar of silver and stoicism. But in that moment, I saw the faintest crack. Her long, dark hair, usually bound so tightly, had a single strand loose, resting against the cool metal of her pauldron. Her eyes, which had met mine with such defiant clarity moments before, now skittered away as my gaze landed on her, fixing on a point somewhere on the Guild Master's bookshelf. She was avoiding me. Was it guilt? For vouching for me and thus throwing me into this? Or something else? The connection she'd mentioned, the one that had saved her life, now felt like a chain being offered—one I had to willingly clamp around my own neck.
I couldn't think with them all staring. The pressure was a physical thing, compressing my lungs.
Without a word, I turned and walked away from the table. I crossed the thick carpet, the soft pile muffling my footsteps, and went to the tall window that looked out over Torak. The city sprawled below in the deepening twilight, a chaotic tapestry of lantern-lit streets and looming shadows. From here, it looked ordered, peaceful. A lie. I knew the truth of its alleyways, its grinding poverty, its Silas Vanes waiting in opulent pits.
I placed a hand against the cool glass, feeling the faint vibration of the city's distant life. I let my eyes unfocus, seeing not the rooftops, but the blue text hovering before me.
[START MISSION]
[DELAY (16 HOURS)]
A delay. A brief reprieve. Fifteen hours to… what? To train more with Corvus? To say goodbye? To pack a better bag? It was an illusion of control. The mission was here. The storm had found me. Running now would only mean entering it later, weaker, and with the displeasure of everyone in this room added to my list of problems.
I thought of the 24.5%. I thought of Silas's red blur. I thought of Jax's unbreakable skin and Corvus's infuriating, essential lessons about being water. I thought of Briza, wounded because of a potion meant for me, and Laron, hiding in his mansion. I thought of the System Administrator's cold smile and the hundred missions stretching into an impossible future.
There was no good choice. There was only the choice that moved me forward.
I took one last, long breath, drawing in the quiet, rarefied air of the room at the top of the world. Then, in my mind, I reached out and pushed the [START MISSION] button.
The effect was instantaneous and internal. The prompt vanished. In the extreme upper corner of my vision, new, stark numerals appeared, white against the darkening cityscape:
319:59:58… 57… 56…
The countdown had begun. Ten days. Two hundred and forty of this world's long hours. A clock more final than any I'd ever known.
But it wasn't done. As the numbers began their inexorable descent, another box unfolded, this one in muted, analytical grey.
***---***
[MISSION ANALYSIS - INITIALIZED]
MISSION 3: THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: C+
SURVIVOR PROBABILITY (BASELINE): 24.5%
ANALYSIS: Probability of mission success given current Host parameters is critically low. Extreme caution is advised.
RECOMMENDED ALLY SUPPLEMENT: Minimum of two (2) allies with combat capabilities comparable to C-Rank Adventurers.
CURRENT VIABLE ALLIES: 0-2 (Status Unconfirmed)
NOTE:Ally 'Freya Mikaelson' is unavailable for primary quest designation due to existing obligations and Royal Guard protocols.
SYSTEM MONITORING: Due to sub-optimal performance metrics in prior mission sequences (See: Mission 2, Rank: D+), Mission 3 will be subject to heightened oversight by the System Administrator. Expect increased analytical scrutiny and reduced tolerance for deviation.
***---***
I stared at the analysis as the numbers ticked down. C+. It wasn't an A-rank nightmare, not an S-rank suicide run. It was a C+. A mid-tier guild quest. And my chance of surviving it, with all my Ki and my new, halting understanding of flow, was just under one in four.
The "Recommended Ally" line was a punch to the gut. I had no one. Laron was a merchant. Briza was bedridden. Elara was an artist. Gwen was a receptionist. Corvus was… Corvus. The Iron Fangs probably still thought I was a coward. And Freya, the one person in this city who had seen me fight and had maybe, just maybe, started to trust me, was explicitly forbidden.
Heightened oversight. The Administrator would be watching. No more flying under the radar. Every mistake would be noted, every failure magnified.
A strange, hollow laugh almost escaped me. Instead, it came out as a soft, bitter sigh fogging the windowpane. I was so weak that a C+ mission was a likely death sentence, and so incompetent that the cosmic referee had decided to watch my execution personally.
I let my forehead rest against the cool glass for a second, the numbers 319:58:12 burning against the back of my eyelids. Then I pushed back the tide of despair. There was no time for it. The clock was literally ticking.
I turned from the window, from the view of the city I was now tasked to save or doom with my success or failure. The faces in the room were still waiting, expectant.
"I accept the quest," I said, my voice cutting through the quiet. It sounded stronger than I felt. "Tell me about the details. Where is this Stone? What exactly am I walking into?"
A subtle shift went through the room. The tension didn't leave, but it changed shape. I was no longer a problem to be managed. I was a tool to be deployed.
Guild Master Valerius gave a single, slow nod of acknowledgement. It was the City Lord, Boromir, who stepped forward, his rumbling voice filling the space.
"The Stone," he began, "is not in a dragon's hoard or a sorcerer's tower. It is in a grave. A military grave." He moved to the large map on the wall, his thick finger tracing a line east from Torak, skirting the northern edge of the Edelmere, and landing on a point marked with a faded, black insignia. "Fort Defal. Built during the peak of the Vermillion Empire's expansion, over sixty years ago. It was a staging ground, a choke point meant to secure their push into these territories."
His finger tapped the spot. "It was also the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the war that finally broke their advance. The 'Rending of Defal.' Imperial battle-mages against our kingdom's earth-shapers and storm-callers. The magic unleashed was… cataclysmic. It didn't just kill the garrison. It unmade the fort. Shattered stone, fused earth, corrupted ley lines. The place was left as a cursed ruin, a testament to mutual annihilation. No one goes there. Not adventurers, not scavengers. The land itself is sick with residual magic, and the things that grow in such sickness are not natural."
He turned his grim face to me. "The Stone is there. Our scholars, cross-referencing imperial dispatches we captured and old alchemical treatises, believe it was not a weapon of war, but a tool of sustainment. The Empire's elite forces used artifacts powered by similar stones to enhance their endurance, to heal grievous wounds on the march. They theorize a Master Alchemist was stationed at Defal, and his greatest work, the Philosopher's Stone itself, was lost when the fort fell. It's been sitting there, amidst the bones and the bad magic, for six decades."
The Duchess spoke next, her melodic voice a stark contrast to Boromir's gravel. "Its rediscovery is not our secret alone. Vermillion loyalists still exist, scattered, hidden. Fanatics who dream of the Empire's return. They would see the Stone as a holy relic, a key to reviving their cause. There are also… independent parties. Mercenary companies with scholarly interests, black-market relic hunters sponsored by foreign powers, even certain noble houses within our own kingdom who would pay a king's ransom for such an object and ask no questions about its origin. The moment our scholars pinpointed its likely location, a race began. A quiet one, for now. But the starting pistol has been fired."
"So I'm not just fighting corrupted monsters and bad terrain," I said, the picture becoming horrifyingly clear. "I'm racing against imperial fanatics, professional treasure hunters, and possibly my own country's greedy nobility."
"Precisely," Valerius said. "Discretion is paramount. An official guild or military expedition would be a beacon, drawing every vulture for a hundred leagues. We need someone who can move fast, move quietly, and whose presence, if discovered, can be disavowed. A lone adventurer on a personal, foolhardy treasure hunt is a believable story. A royal agent is not."
"And the Stone itself?" I asked. "What does it look like? How do I find it in a 'cursed ruin'?"
"The records are vague," the Duchess admitted. "It is described as 'a heart of crystallized potential,' glowing with an inner light. It would radiate potent transmutative energy. In a place saturated with death and destructive magic, such a font of pure, creative power should… stand out. As for finding it within the ruins, we have this."
She gestured to Neralia, who, with a sour expression, stepped forward and placed a small, lacquered wooden case on the table. She opened it. Inside, nestled on velvet, was a delicate compass. But instead of a needle, its face held a sliver of faintly shimmering crystal suspended in a clear, viscous fluid.
"A resonance compass," the Duchess explained. "The crystal is a shard of Seraphite, attuned to high-order alchemical energies. It was in the same cache of documents that revealed the Stone's location. The closer you get to the Stone, the brighter it will glow, and the crystal will orient itself towards the source. It is our only map."
I looked at the compass, then at the ticking numbers in my vision: 319:41:22. A needle in a haystack of nightmares, guided by a glowing rock in a jar.
"Your tasks are threefold," Valerius summarized, his voice iron. "First, penetrate the ruins of Fort Defal, avoiding the environmental hazards and any creatures spawned from the residual magic. Second, locate the Philosopher's Stone using the compass. Third, secure it and return it to us, evading or eliminating any competing parties you encounter. You will be paid upon delivery. The sum will be sufficient to grant you a new identity and passage to another continent, should you wish to disappear from Silas Vane's reach permanently."
It was a carrot. A giant, golden carrot. Freedom from the immediate threat. But it was also a trap. Completing this mission would bind me tighter to these people, to this kingdom's secrets. There was no clean way out.
I looked at the compass, at the map, at the expectant, powerful faces around me. I had ten days. I had a 24.5% chance. I had no allies.
And I had a perverted tea-drinking sensei who thought I was a dense rock.
I reached out and closed the lid of the little wooden case, the click sounding absurdly loud in the quiet room.
"I'll need supplies," I said, my mind already shifting into logistical mode, the survival probability a cold, hard number to be beaten. "Rations for two weeks. Water purification. Climber's gear. And anything you have on the specific magical hazards of the Defal region. Not general 'cursed land' warnings. Specifics."
A flicker of approval in Valerius's hawk-like eyes. He was a man who appreciated a shift from doubt to planning. "It will be provided. You depart at first light."
First light. The countdown in my corner read 319:38:05. The crucible was set. The fire was lit. And I, the flawed, weak metal, had just willingly stepped inside.