I watch as the lich rises up, the blue fire in its eyes locking onto me. I can sense the gravity magic it’s using to make itself float, and decide to meet it. I fly up into the air with my hands behind my back and a confident smile. I float up just a bit higher before saying,
“So? Are you sentient?”
It freezes for a second, looking dead at me. Then, its jaw begins to shift, and a small blue flame builds up within its neck. It shifts back and forth, the jaw clattering as it follows. Eventually, a voice comes out, hoarse and rough, like a loud whisper,
“You… Huuuuuman… How… Can you speak… Undeeeead?”
I cock an eyebrow at this. I mean, I’m just speaking English. I shake my head and say,
“No idea. Just can. Anyways, are you a lich?”
It thinks for a second before shaking its head slowly,
“No… I am… A failed lich… A… Demi-Lich…”
I nod my head. I remember reading about Demi-liches in one of those books in the study. They’re people who failed to reach lichdom halfway through. This causes the spell to backfire and destroys part of their reasoning.
“You must have gotten quite far into the spell for you to still be capable of conversation, huh? So. What innocent soul did you use?”
My voice gets cold by the end, knowing that depending on its answer is how painful I’ll make its death each time I face it.
It freezes for a second before the flame in its throat flickers and its jaw clicks,
“My… Daughter…”
…
*snap*
I instantly interfere with its gravity magic with a snap of my fingers, causing it to fall to the ground. Its bones clatter and its eyes flare to life as it lifts its arms towards me, starting to cast something,
“Bon-“
“Nope!”
I cast a holy aura that cuts through its arm, causing it to clatter to the ground, detached from the body. To my surprise, the Demi-lich actually reaches up and grasps the stump in pain, trembling and letting out a low, gargled noise that I assume is it feeling pain.
I casually slash with my hand and cut off one of its legs, causing it to tumble back to the ground.
“GRAAAAAGHGSHHGJAG!”
I scowl,
“I mean seriously. What kind of parent—“
I slash its other arm off,
“Kills their daughter—”
I slash off the other leg,
“And attempts to torture her soul for eternity?”
I float back down and stand above it, looking down at it. My hood drawn up, my eyes glowing green, I look at the filth below me. I crouch down and grab its ribcage with my hand while saying,
“Was your magic so unbelievably pathetic that you had to resort to this to achieve immortality?”
I create fire around my hand, burning its chest. It writhes as the bones beneath my hand begin to turn black,
“Unlike a pathetic mage like you, I’ll likely be able to achieve immortality without losing my humanity! Besides, I wouldn’t want immortality if I can't share it with those I love!”
I lift him up, scowling into his emotionless, yet terrified eye sockets. I scoff and toss him down onto the ground again before pointing my hand, threateningly,
“So, you wanna tell me where your phylactery is, or would you rather continue suffering? Please, take your time answering, I have quite a few spells I haven’t tested out on anything yet. After all, you’ll just regenerate after.”
It just stares at me, letting out a grumbling wail of pain as I spot a locket on its chest. I figure this is probably it, so I grab it and yank it off. I stand up, letting the fires dissipate as I open the locket. Inside is a black and white photograph of a smiling little girl. My brows furrow as I look at it before turning and looking at the demi-lich.
“She deserved a better parent than you.”
I cast a fireball in my palm, engulfing the locket. The entire body of the demi-lich, including the sliced off limbs, begins to smoke. I hear a haunting wail come from the locket as the body bursts into flames, quickly turning to ashes. My fire turns blue as it burns away the soul of the demi-lich, cleansing the locket, and revealing…
[Regret of a Failed Lich: This locket contains the regret of a demi-lich, who pointlessly sacrificed his own daughter for eternal life. He became a monster after escaping into the dungeon. It grants the wearer cleansing blue flames which deal five times damage to undead, and double damage to fiends. (Effects: x5 damage to Undead, x2 damage to Fiendish)]
Not too bad. I can just toss it on, and it’ll give me buffs. I slip it on and look at the drops from the Lich. First and foremost, it dropped another spell book titled “Basics of Necromancy”.
Hmm… Well, it’s magic! I’m gonna learn it! I’ll have to ask Kiki how this world sees Necromancy. To be fair though, I don’t care. Not like I’m planning on raising an undead army, yet at least. Depends on how deep the enslavement of his people goes.
As well as the book, I got a neat little stave. It has a dark purple crystal at the tip and looks to be made of a dark, twisting wood. It feels sturdy in the hand and even has some brown leather wraps where my hand naturally goes. I also got another green gem.
Inspecting the stave…
[Necromancer’s Cursed Stave: a stave made of the twisted wood of a cursed undead oak. It enhances the power of all necromantic spells and empowers the wielder. (Effects: 5x Necromancy, 2x Total Mind stat)]
Shit, this thing’s great! If that book has necromantic attack spells, they’ll be five times as powerful as before! This dungeon is so worth clearing, honestly. And it seems I still have more of it to go, as there’s another door on the other side of the room. Still, I’ll wait to clear that. I could use some food.
I’m about to walk back to the study when I remember the effect of one of my titles.
‘Wait a minute, I can just call the portal to me!’
Well, shit, no use fighting this guy and Baraqiel again, then! I walk over and open the door to head deeper into the dungeon, coming into a completely rough stone cave that is no longer composed of straight, easy to traverse caves. Instead, these go up and down, left and right, and all over the place. This one’s gonna be a nightmare to get through, so I’ll probably rush the boss. One quick check of my stats before leaving:
~~~~~
Stats:
Vitality: 18(27) / 26
Agility: 23(35) / 47
Mind: 734(5872) / 98,260
~~~~~
… Wait, my Vitality is at 27 out of 26? Isn’t that kinda impossible? A quick check of my fully status screen tells me why…
[New title obtained!]
[Balance Breaker (VIT): you have broken through your limits using unnatural means. This allows you to grow infinitely stronger in the related stat.]
Holy shit that’s broken. Literally! I’ve already broken the limit of my vitality, huh? How physically powerful does that make me now? Probably not strong enough to face Baraqiel with nothing but a sword and shield. Though, I shouldn’t have any issue fighting any of the monsters on the first floor of the dungeon even with my bare hands anymore!
And that mind stat, holy shit. There’s no way that those multipliers add up to me being at 5872. At most, I should be at 4404… Wait a fuckin’ second… This stave doubles my TOTAL mind stat?! That’s broken as hell! Holy shit, I’m a light novel protagonist! If anyone is reading my life, hello! I bet you’re jealous of the cute catboy boyfriend I have, huh? Too bad! You can’t have him!
…
Yeah, there’s no way.
Sufficiently happy with my status screen, I wave my hand, and a ripple in space time appears before me, warping into the same portal that’s in my bedroom. I walk through and stretch out my arms as I end up back on earth. I almost call out for Kiki before spotting him snuggled up on the couch, enjoying the sun coming through the window.
I smile at him and walk over, kneeling in front of him and gently running my fingers through his curly white hair. His little ears twitch as I do, and he lets out a content sigh.
I decide against waking him up and decide to head into the shower to wash off the dankness of the dungeon. His nap doesn’t last long, though, as by the time I’ve stripped naked, he comes bounding into the shower, already nude, and immediately hugs me and nuzzles his nose into my neck.
“You’re baaaaack!”
He speaks with sleepy happiness. I giggle and hug him back, cupping the back of his head with one hand and rubbing his back with the other. I kiss his cheek and say,
“Yup. I just got back. I didn’t wanna wake you up from your nap. So? Did you have good dreams?”
He nods his head and kisses me back while letting out soft purrs.
“Mhm… I was catching a whole bunch of lightning bugs and putting them in jars. They’re great for zapping bad people!”
I chuckle and pat his butt before getting into the shower with him. He leans back against me and rests his head on my chest, letting out a sigh of relief. I smile and rub his sides.
“You really like the shower, huh?”
He leans forwards and lets the water run down his head and body. He wiggles his ears, flicking beads of water against the fake tile walls of the shower.
“Yes… It’s so nice… The hot springs back home are great, but they’re so stinky… This is so much better…”
I giggle and rub his tummy while he presses his butt against me again. I lay my chin on his shoulder while hugging him,
“It’s funny. People here think that natural hot springs are better than showers.”
He nods in agreement, his ear flicking water onto my face as he does,
“Well, they’re probably super great when they’re not the only source of bathing around you. This, you can adjust to any temperature you want… You can have it shower on you like warm rain… This is super nice…”
I honestly can’t find any fault in what he says. I’ve been in hot springs a few times, and they were okay, but I definitely prefer a regular bath and shower.
Neither of us are really in the mood for sex right now, so we just wash each other off and snuggle under the water for a bit. After getting out, I blow dry Kiki’s hair, causing it to puff up like an afro. His cheeks puff up as I laugh and his cheeks flush. With frantic head rubbing, his hair flattens back down into his curly, white locks. I give him a kiss before we head back in the living room, laying down on the couch and watching more anime while we cuddle. Of course, fully naked, like any respectable Caitherian would be. Eventually, we fall into another nap thanks to the sunlight warming us up.