Effie had been showing Caster around the Dark City cautiously. It was a dangerous place after all.
Without a pathfinder, this place is basically a death zone for most.
'But... probably not for Caster. He's too strong for that.'
The couple had hunted seven awakened creatures so far, in the over four hours spent hunting today.
It was a pace much slower than the one they had in the forest.
And the reason for that was clear. There were fallen ranked creatures here so they had no choice but to avoid them and look for staggering awakened ranked creatures.
The immense population of the forest outside was also abnormal, any other time there wouldn't be nearly as many creatures there. Effie guessed that it was some sort of mirgration due to whatever abominal reasons.
Just a month later, and there would probably be none left to migrate. But more beasts, however small the number was, were still entering the forest. Eventually they'd stop, so hunting them first now was the best move, and now that the numbers would most likely not increase, thus for Caster, learning to hunt in the dark city would be a good idea now.
And that's what he did.
Effie teached Caster all she knew and all she could in the little time they had. All the different beasts she's met, potential dangers, and much more.
Their teamwork was incredibly high as well, both inside and outside combat.
The dark city was filled with more beasts than monsters or demons, so his shards colleting efficiency wasn't very high either.
However he did what he could.
He was left with only 18 shards after the use of puppeteering on Effie. Effie gave her left overs, 63 shards, but they weren't enough either. Currently he had exactly ninety nine shards in his book of books.
An awakened demon was spotted by Effie, she signalled to Caster to be as silent as he can and led him quietly.
Unfortunately the nightmare creature sensed their gazes on him and he rushed towards them.
"Guess we gotta fight head on."
Caster simply nodded and brandished his blade, getting in front of Effie.
Effie summoned her spear as well, getting in stance. But she didn't think she'd have to step in.
Caster stepped in front of her after all. Whenever Caster did that, he'd take care of whatever was in front of them a lone. It wasn't some sort of communication method the created, but just something Effie noticed.
The demon had gotten close to Caster.
The demon had a massive body and seemed to be tripedal, it also had another two hand-like projections coming out from what seemed to be its shoulders. Its head was comically large for his already massive size.
In short, it looked completely disfigured.
With a jump, reaching half past its leg, Caster stabbed it with immense force. Using the stabbed sword in the leg as a foot hold he grabbed somewhere above but simply tearing its skin with his bare hands.
Afterwards he took out the sword stabbed into it and finally finished climbing it.
The demon was shaking violently since the moment it got stabbed, to shake off the stabber. But Caster's grip on it was too strong.
Effie was calmly watching from a distance. She knew if she joined in, it would have ended already, but Caster didn't seem to like it when his hunts get interrupted. So she waited for his call, or him finishing it off.
She saw Caster struggle with it.
Normally an awakened demon wouldn't be much of a problem for him, however this one was massive in size. It made it difficult to kill.
However, if he used his aspect or book of books, this awakened demon would have already died ten times over.
'But what would be the point of using the book of books if this battle is for fueling it up more. But I wonder why he isn't using his aspect.'
Caster used the book of books way more than his aspect, even though his aspect was very strong. Effie had guessed that maybe it had something to do with his flaw, like conserving his aspect or something like that.
Effie wanted to ask about that, but she didn't know if Caster trusted her enough to tell her. It'd make things awkward in the long run so she waited.
Waited for Caster to tell it to her himself.
When Effie zoned back in, she noticed that the demon had lost its hind legs and both its arms. The only limb it had left was its third leg.
Effie laughed.
'How brutal of you.'
Caster moved with terrifying speeds for someone not using his aspect
'Does he have physical enhancement as well? How's he so strong? He's not even saturated...'
Jumping off the demon's back, Caster rushed onto its head and stabbed his sword cleanly through its skull.
It didn't seem to kill it, but it slowed down the demon further.
The demon was basically dead now but it still shook off Caster due to the skull lacking a space to hold it.
Caster flew off a dozen or so meters away into a wall.
He shook it off with just a groan.
Caster took a hit. Now she can't wait in the sidelines.
This was what the two of them tacitly decided to do.
Effie took her stance and threw threw her spear with immense speeds towards the skull.
With just one stab, the demon, which was already at its last legs, gave in to death.
[You have slain...]
Caster who had gotten up immediately, fell down after seeing the demon die. Now he was simply resting. He dismissed the sword that was in the demon's skull and resummoned it back to him.
Effie went over to the corpse and took out the shards.
She threw them over to Caster as she walked towards him.
"You alright?"
Caster absorbed the shards into the book, raising its shard count from 99 to 102.
"Yeah."
Effie let a hand out for him, which Caster grabbed, pleasing Effie.
Caster got up with a groan.
"Hah... I took an unnecessary hit there."
"For sure... you got flown away."
Effie let out a forcecd laugh.
***
They hunted for a while.
Luckily they found a hoard of awakened creatures somewhere, increasing their slow pace massively.
By now, Kieron had surpassed Caster in skill and battle proficiency massively. And it wasn't just through battle experience. Even in terms of pure technique, Caster had sharpened his edge massively.
It took just about three months for that.
Incredible pace.
Getting back to the fight, it didn't last long. Effie and Caster swept through all the near two dozen awakened creatures in a few minutes.
Luckily there were no devils or tyrants in the hoard.
After cleaning the fight up, Caster absorbed all the shards into his book. Its count raised from 102 to 133.
This still didn't seem enough, so Caster and Effie hunted for a while. Even after darkness hit the city.
It was dangerous, but Caster didn't have much time.
And Effie seemed to trust him enough through this.
After a while of hunting, it was nearly midnight. They set up a camp in some building they found. The two of them decided to sleep in turns, starting with Caster who had done more fighting today.
Effie seemed to be looking over Caster as she simply sat a few meters apart.
It gave him a sense of calm.
After waking up a few hours later, he let Effie sleep.
Now he was the one looking over her.
Just like that a few hours passed again and it was now the dawn of the 69th day since the winter solstice.
After waking Effie up, Caster and Effie hunted further.
By noon, the shard count had increased from 133 to 207.
"I think I have enough now, more than two hundred should be enough. I used up about 43 of these while puppeteering you for about 5 minutes, which is roughly a shard every 7 seconds. This means that I will have roughly 25 minutes of puppeteering on gunlaug at the highest."
Effie simply chimed in.
"That's gotta be way more than enough."
"Indeed. I'll meet up with Gunlaug today, or if he acts up a little, maybe tomorrow."
Effie simply nodded. She was actually serious for once.
"So... what should I do? You told me to not follow you there..."
"Yes, I have a different task for you. I want you to stay at the settlement no matter what for the next... let's say two to three days. After that go to the edges of the dark city, the edges facing the labyrinth, and wait there."
After considering Caster's words for a few moments, Effie simple asked:
"Why?"
"I want you to keep an eye out for any human that seems to approach there."
"You think there's people out there that survived 2 months since the solstice?"
"I don't think that... I know it. There's going to be three people that will reach there sometime next week. There will be two girls and a guy that looks like a girl. One of the girls will be a tall pale woman with white hair, the other girl will have long blonde hair with a short body. The guy will be short too, taller than the blonde girl though."
Caster coughs.
"Basically, in short, in a nutshell, bring them the outer settlements, or the Castle if I win. Tell them about me, they'll trust you more that way. Don't tell them that I knew they'd be there though."
"Is either of the girls your girlfriend or something? So worried about them?"
Effie let out a bitter chuckle.
"Uhh... no, not really. I barely know them to be honest... I mean i've known about them for a couple years now, but I met them only at the academy."
'Its true, I've read shadow slave for about two years.'
"Hmm... Okay. I'll do it."
"Yeah, thanks. Leave for the dark city the day after the day after tomorrow."
"You could have just said to leave three days later..."
"..."
"..."
"Anyways, let's leave this damned city."