GH - 203

“The Big M?” Kezo asked.

Paritor’s eyes flicked from me to Kezo, and back to me.

I slightly nodded at Paritor. If he was so concerned about keeping the ashy hermit a secret, he shouldn’t strut around with his new summons. Unlikely that anyone had seen this flaming big cat and abominable scarecrow before so they’d invite attention.

I too wanted to keep Big M’s Ocadules a secret, but I also had two impromptu agendas here—I was showing Paritor that Kezo could be trusted, at the same time showing Kezo that we trusted him.

This was the same strategy I used to gain Paritor’s trust—show how open I was with secrets, subliminally influencing the other person to do the same out of guilt, piling on them the burden to reciprocate. Of course, this only worked on nice people. Selfish ones, with no sense of equality, would simply take advantage of me if I did that to them. Fortunately, both Paritor and Kezo were nice people, else I wouldn’t bother with this.

I had no interest in Kezo’s secrets, but I wanted his aid in siphoning information about music magic from his minstrel werewolf friend. And I wouldn’t need to part with significant secrets. Just mold the illusion of it.

“The Big M is an NPC in the Golden Forest,” I explained to Kezo, winking at Paritor to tell him it was fine. “Did you notice the rising smoke when you—?”

Kezo snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “The old hermit cooking meat—Mehubanarath. Is Big M your nickname for him?”

I nodded. “He’s quite a big… M. Okay, that doesn’t sound good. Let’s just go with Mehu for this conversation. Did you meet Mehu when you were a newbie?”

“I did, yeah. Me and my friends headed for the smoke right as soon as we arrived on this mountain.” Kezo grimaced. “That was a really hard quest. We tried a lot of times to kill the Mirdabons at level one. Maybe we could’ve succeeded if we took it all seriously instead of trying to get each other killed. Then we tried to look for other ways to complete the quest other than killing Mirdabons. We didn’t get far because, again, we just tried to get each other killed by the Mirdabons.”

“Sounds like something that me and my friends used to do,” I blurted without thinking. I blinked after saying that. Why did I say that? It was true, but I wasn’t up for any sentimentality right now.

Kezo continued, “We ran into a player—he was level twenty—and asked for help. He was quite a nice guy. Gave us many items and money. I couldn’t remember his name, but I hadn’t seen him on this mountain for a long time. Thinking back, we should’ve been more specific with the help we wanted. After getting the items… that was the abrupt end of trying to complete Mehu’s quest.”

“Because you got help from other Mardukryons,” I said, chuckling.

“You got that right.”

“Hang on, isn’t it stated in the quest details not to ask for help from others? Can’t recall exactly what it said.”

“It is something along the lines of not interacting with the village,” Paritor muttered, glaring at me.

“Something like that,” said Kezo. “We didn’t know that getting help from other players also wasn’t allowed.”

I gestured to Paritor’s flaming spirits. “These guys are from one of the possible Ocadule rewards for Mehu’s quest.” I subtly waved at Paritor to assure him I wouldn’t spill anything substantial. I didn’t even mention anything about hidden achievements. “I also completed that quest. My healing skills are from another reward choice.” I cast [Healing Embrace]; ghostly hands swam around us.

“That means you guys managed to level up without outside help?” said Kezo. “Good job, you two! I’m guessing you found a secret quest that gave Essence?”

Before Paritor could speak—I didn’t know what he was going to say, but he was frowning—I said, “Nah, me, I stuck with Mirdabons. I succeeded in killing a pack on my own by tricking them into jumping over the cliffs. Man, you wouldn’t believe how many times I tried to get them to do that. Hundreds probably.”

Kezo laughed with me. Paritor had an incredulous look, unsure if I was telling the truth. I winked at him. He shrugged and laughed too, thinking I was joking. With that, I turned the attention away from Paritor and whatever his secret way was in completing the Big M’s quest.

Why am I scheming about this?

Kezo would help me if I asked. There was no need for all this complicated setup and mind games. It was just… I couldn’t help myself. Perhaps I was lacking the sense of control of a situation that I didn’t engineer, in a sense.

For the first time in a long time, I missed the simplicity of my high school gaming days. How hard was it to just have fun?

“Hey, Paritor,” I said, thinking of something fun. “Those aren’t permanent summons, are they?”

He shook his head. “They have a quite long duration, but they do expire. Why do you ask?”

I grinned at him. “Why did you summon them? We’re not fighting anything. From the looks of it, you had them out while you were inside the village.”

“I was testing my new skill,” Paritor quickly replied, grasping what I implied. “I wasn’t putting them on display. There was no reason to dismiss them because I-I, erm, simply like looking at them.”

“They do look cool,” said Kezo.

“Since you have a new skill,” I said to Paritor, “that means your Ocadule has Ranked up and you progressed the quest with Mehu, right?”

“Indeed, my Asipu Ocadule has reached Rank five,” Paritor said. “I slept only an hour after our leeching session and resumed grinding to strengthen myself for the Great Hunt. Herald, I apologize that I wasn’t able to complete my promise. We can continue leeching later.”

Is he trying to shift the topic away from the Big M? I wondered with an inward smirk. “I got to level twenty-nine on my own,” I said. “Can you help me to thirty after our team practice later? I’m also hoping to get stronger for the Great Hunt.” And we could talk about what was next on the Big M’s quest, I added in my head.

While waiting for the others, I tested music magic and its interactions with other skills. First, I tested [Unselfish Blighted Decay].

Lvl. 1 Unselfish Blighted Decay: Suffer (1%) of your Maximum Health as Poison Damage per second, and share the Blight with enemies, dealing (0.1%) of your Maximum Health as Piercing Poison Damage per second in an area around you. While active, your body is more susceptible to pain, (-5%) Armor and (-10%) Poison Damage Resistance; affected enemies will be doubly weaker. This skill will automatically toggle off at 5% Health.

Purple smoke unfurled around me as I cast the skill, mixing with the darker [Blight Cloud]. My health didn’t go down because my regeneration was high.

I switched to [Lowan Oud] and played [Carhoni’s Chorus]. The purple smoke didn’t disappear.

But because all my skills were blacked out, I didn’t have a way to turn off [Unselfish Blighted Decay] in an emergency. Perhaps it’d turn itself off once my health dropped down to five percent—at that point I’d soon be dead anyway.

A minor risk I have to take, I decided. I’d just let this skill remain at level one to not increase the damage cost to me. If in really dire straits, I could turn off my song spell, then [Unselfish Blighted Decay], and run away.

Next, I cast [Healing Touch] and [Greater Pyro Shell]. The green pulse of [Healing Touch] persisted as I plucked the strings of [Lowan Oud], healing me per second, and so did the vibrant yellow shell around me that was soon enveloped by the barrier of [Carhoni’s Chorus].

“That confirms I’m still Unarmed,” I muttered.

“Song spells seemingly compliment the Ocadules from Mehubanarath,” Paritor observed.

“Really?” said Kezo. “How so?”

Paritor replied, “The three Ocadule choices Mehubanarath presents the player as a reward all require an Unarmed state.” It seemed Paritor was more relaxed about our secret now.

“That’s why you’re using a statue instead of a weapon,” said Kezo, nodding. “There’s the usual summon-and-buff routine, but I think the meta nowadays is that summoners attack with their minions to add DPS.”

“What you say is true,” said Paritor. “I know of others who push it far, running glass cannon builds and using their summons for debuffs and buffs instead of the other way around. That option is not available to me and Herald. And I prefer experimenting to know for myself what is good. Musician mechanics appear to synergize well with Unarmed builds, especially a summoner of the more traditional brand I use.”

I stopped my cheeks from curving into a smirk. I have a hold on Paritor! I could use my knowledge of music magic as leverage to—hold up.

Stop the scheming. Treat this as a straightforward cooperation among friends.

What information did I have about musical instruments anyway? I still had no clue why the crimson goat asked me to dance. Could Paritor even trigger Yusa’s quest at this point? If I told him to hunt the king of the ice monkeys and then go straight to the goat, would, would that work? I might end up embarrassing myself dangling information to trade that was a dud.

I said, “There’ll be more Mardukryon musicians soon.” Then I told him about Eugenius tooting his flute earlier. Come to think of it, Eugenius reduced the value of my musical secret unless I found something more valuable.

“Eugenius? The streamer?” Kezo asked.

“I’ve encountered him in the village a few times,” said Paritor. “He is always surrounded by many people, asking him to party with them.” Paritor shivered. “I couldn’t fathom playing like that, never having a moment’s peace.”

“If Eugenius is going musician,” said Kezo, “he’ll be Unarmed too. Maybe you can try selling him information about Mehu’s Ocadules. Who knows, you’ll get featured on his stream?”

“I’m not comfortable being in the public’s eye,” said Paritor.

“Same with me,” I said with a chuckle, though this wasn’t a laughing matter.

I silently mulled over the possibility that Eugenius had completed the Big M’s quest. Spokeless Roda had mentioned he watched Eugenius getting repeatedly killed by Mirdabons in his stream. What if Eugenius did find a way to kill them?

Even if he did, it didn’t mean he also found the hidden achievement of killing a Mirdabon pack solo. Likely not. I imagined him asking his viewers to make Mardukryon characters and help him out. A group of level-one players hunting Mirdabons was how Luds did it—that wouldn’t trigger the hidden achievement for the reward of better Unarmed Ocadules.

I realized that Eugenius stream would bring attention to the Big M. Like the guys that Kezo mentioned, who discovered musical instruments early on, waiting risked others discovering my secrets. However, it also wasn’t the time to sell them.

I have to progress faster and find more secrets, I thought, deciding to take my own advice. My Aritu Ocadule would soon reach Rank five, and I could return to the Big M.

“Hello!” Megan called from afar, breaking my scheming. Behind her was Nitana.