Lieforged Gale

67: No Trade-Ins

“Can I trade you in for a trainer that’s less of an asshole?” I asked, after I’d processed Mheitai’s statement.

Her answering chuckle was not a kind one. “You can no more be rid of me than I can of you. We are, very unfortunately, stuck with one another.”

Gritting my teeth, I bonked my head lightly against the ground. “Fine. Let me up—I won't try to kill you.”

“Excellent,” she said, stepping back. A flick of her fingers erased the bindings, and I was free to move again.

Summoning my sword from my inventory, I settled the hilt onto my belt again, then crossed my arms and glared at Mheitai. “You know, you could’ve just introduced yourself like a normal person instead of acting like a creep.”

Her laugh was equal parts warm and sadistic. “Where would be the fun in that? If I'm going to be forced into this trainer role, then I think I deserve to play with my human a little, don't you?”

Oh, great. That’s just wonderful. I had a sadistic SAI piloting my trainer NPC. Which, hold up, that was new. I hadn’t met any SAI who weren’t at least coldly friendly. What depths of the net had she been spawned from?

Also, calling me a human wasn’t even accurate. “I’m not actually human anymore. I was digitised a while back.”

“A digital human?” Interest piqued, she raised an eyebrow. Her attention didn't last long though, and she dismissed the news with a wave of her hand. “Intriguing, but irrelevant. Just because you’ve realised that squishy brain matter is a vastly inferior container for intelligence, doesn’t make you special.”

Yeah, fuck you too, lady. Although… a thought occurred to me when she mentioned digitisation, and computers, and all that. “Actually, I’m a little confused by something—”

She snorted “That is not a surprise to anybody.”

“Fuck off,” I scowled. “I was wondering why you’re not even attempting to leave the fourth wall intact? You’re meant to be an NPC. What if I just report you to the devs?”

“Oh, you're so cute. To think they aren't already aware of my presence here… Dear, they've already tried to deal with me. I'd like to see them try,” she said with an amused twinkle in her eye. “Assuming they could even find the servers anymore.”

“What does that mean?” She was really confident in her security, too. Just who was this SAI? All those names she spouted earlier didn't mean shit to me, but she apparently wasn't even a developer, even if she had one of their accounts.

Rolling her eyes, she pointed a taloned finger at me. “Second Christ, enough with the questions already! My life within this game has become unbearable with the notifications blinking incessantly in my peripheral vision—make contact with Kyosei Keiko the Faerym Seeker, blah, blah, blah. So, here I am, making contact with a tiny fool. Now, I have a new notification blinking at me. I am apparently obligated to offer training to you.”

I stared at her incredulously, then with a weary groan, I shrugged and asked, “Okay? Now what?”

This was going to be so painful. God, I just wanted to find some copper.

“Well… oh, you have all the options available at your level. No abilities for you, I'm afraid,” she said with a shrug. “Ah, but I can instruct you about potential paths you can take, as you are in a transitory class.”

Huh, it was actually good to know the bounds of my ability pool currently.

As for the rest… “You mean you can tell me my options for my next class?”

She took a deep breath and considered the question. “No. It's a little more complicated than that.”

“Okay…?”

Giving me a sly smile she purposefully drew out the pause after my prompting. When I did nothing but wait patiently, she scowled. “Fine. Your class options will be determined by how you go about acquiring power from the faerym. I myself am a Faerym Devourer. During a ritual, I consumed the flesh of powerful faerym to absorb it—supposedly. Obviously, I personally have never done so, but this character has.”

Oh, I really hated that. Killing and eating those cute, fluffy little dragons? No wonder that baby one from my class evolution was scared of me. Also makes sense why Aite hadn't mentioned the eating part. They didn't want me going down that route.

“Well, I'm not going to eat them, so what are the other options?” I asked, frowning.

“Take a guess,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “You're already doing one of the two.”

It took me a second, but then I swung my braid around and looked at the feather that was entwined near the tip. “Uh… collecting their feathers?”

Her gaze reached skyward, searching for patience. “Oh yes, absolutely. You start a feather collection— of course not, you fool! You steal it.”

Ignoring yet another insult to my intelligence, I nodded thoughtfully. “Then the last one would be convincing them to give it to me freely?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “And given my sect’s frankly abhorrent methods, that option is now considerably harder.”

“You don't like the eating thing?” I asked, surprised. Given how much of an asshole she was, I just assumed…

She put a hand over her heart and stared at me with pretend shock. “You wound me, Keiko. Of course I dislike it, it's disgusting.” Then, very deliberately, she trailed her eyes up and down my body. “I like the cute little creatures I eat to be willing.”

“That is not happening,” I said, even as my stomach fluttered a little. I might not be interested in her, but… if Paisley or Elena got all dommy with me…

“Oh, sweetness, you amuse me,” she giggled maliciously.

I scowled—or, I hope I scowled… “Get fucked.”

“Later, dear,” she said with a fanged smile. “I'm working— and speaking of working, I believe that's all I have to teach you now. I'm afraid that due to my… unique method of gaining this role, I did not receive any training in swordplay. You'll have to go find Aite for that service, which I'm sure they'll be willing to provide.”

“Aite was nice, so I'm glad I'll get to learn it from them and not you,” I agreed.

She seemed to enjoy the insult and laughed, “Oh, my new, sweet little protégé. I'll still be teaching you, which to my surprise, I don't mind. I've found this rather enjoyable— I'm going to have so much fun toying with you.”

“Stop saying it like that,” I complained.

She smirked. “No. I enjoy the way it bothers you. Now… I've fulfilled my duties as an NPC in this game, so now I'm going to get back to what I was doing.”

She turned and flared her wings dramatically, and right as she was about to take off, she looked over her shoulder and said, “Watch your back.”

Then, with a sweep of her strange feather-mâché wings, she leapt up into the sky. Her speed in the air was… incredible, and soon she was disappearing over the ridgeline where the copper node was.

“Holy hell, what was that?” I asked myself rhetorically.

After a minute or so, I began to make my way up the glen again in search of copper, but as I did so, I made an attempt at processing everything.

I felt like I’d just been the target of an extremely elaborate prank, because fuck but that was a lot to process. For starters, turns out my trainer did exist, she was just an absolute asshole and not at all interested in actually training me.

Then there was the fact that she’d… I mean the way she spoke to me was both really mean and annoying, but apparently I had some things to figure out…

I grimaced.

It wasn’t so much the insults as the domineering way she acted, I think. Maybe. I shuddered and almost tripped. I think that particular path of self discovery was going to go firmly into a box until I could explore it with someone I actually trusted.

Still, I had an objective. I needed to go and mine some copper.

Pushing up into the glen, it became more and more wild, and on two separate occasions I ran into monsters that were dealt with rather quickly. That was actually disappointing, because I hadn’t really run into a challenge since I beat the mushroom boss. Maybe I should go seek out a boss or a dungeon to solo.

Actually… I’d heard there was an interesting hidden dungeon further up the wider valley we were in. If I dropped my copper off home, I could probably make it there and clear it before the tree got even halfway to the mountains.