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Chapter 58: Chomp

So, instead, Arwin shoved Rodrick to the side and threw himself forward with a roar. Perhaps he’d caught the gargoyle by complete surprise or perhaps it was just luck – either way, Arwin cleared the monster’s claws and drove his shoulder into its side, throwing all [Scourge] had to offer behind the blow.

It was just like sprinting into a wall at full tilt. Arwin’s armor shuddered and the bones in his shoulder cracked. Without the extra force of his hammer, Arwin only just barely managed to redirect the gargoyle to the side.

The monster spun, slamming into the wall before it could fully skid to a stop – but Arwin didn’t wait for it to turn. He sprinted forward and dismissed his hammer before flinging himself at the gargoyle, much to the horrified yells of everyone behind him.

Arwin ignored them. He wrapped his arms around the gargoyle’s neck and swung himself onto its cold back, ignoring the pain that arced through his broken arm as he pulled himself close. The gargoyle let out a confused hiss, spinning to try and throw Arwin off.

But, before it could, Arwin leaned in and bit into the monster’s neck with all his might. It was as solid as, well, stone. For a horrifying instant, he thought he might have miscalculated and was about to earn himself some early dentures.

Then, with a crunch, the monster’s cold body gave way. His teeth dug through its flesh and power coursed into Arwin’s body. The gargoyle screamed and bucked violently, finally throwing him free.

Arwin landed on his feet, skidding a foot back. His arm popped and shifted. Blinking in surprise, Arwin flexed his hand. A grin crept across his face. It had healed. The power he’d stolen from the gargoyle was already fading away, but it had been enough.

“Oh yeah,” Arwin said, baring his teeth in a hungry grin. “You’re on the menu, buddy.”

The gargoyle stared at Arwin, trying to process what had happened. And, in that moment, Lillia struck. Condensed shadows carved out from beneath her feet and drove up, sending spikes straight through the monster’s stomach.

Lurching, the gargoyle flapped its wings desperately in attempt to free itself, but Lillia’s magic had it pinned firmly in place.

Damn, I completely screwed this up, didn’t I? We do have an offensive mage.

The battlefield wasn’t the spot to lament mistakes. Arwin extended his hands and Verdant Blaze reformed within it, the crystals in the hammer’s head igniting with power as he broke into a run.

Struggling even harder, the gargoyle tried to free itself – but a shimmer of blue light enveloped it, stopping the monster from ripping free of Lillia’s bindings. Rodrick darted forward, gritting his teeth as his sword lit with burning light once more.

Three flashes of light cut into the gargoyle’s neck as Rodrick unleashed his flurry of strikes into it. An instant later, Arwin’s hammer came crashing down on the monster’s head. Fire bloomed with a roar, blowing his hair back as he unloaded every ounce of strength that he could bring to bear on the monster.

The gargoyle’s head caved in and shattered. For a moment, the bone that made its body up started to knit itself back together, trying to reform the head, but a second set of unified strikes from Arwin and Rodrick put that notion to rest.

Smooth bone turned grey and cracked. Arwin stepped back as the gargoyle crumbled away, collapsing into a pile of discolored rubble at his feet.

“No!” Lillia groaned, dropping to her knees and rifling through the pieces of the monster. “I can’t cook any of this! It’s inedible!”

“Tell that to him,” Rodrick said, sheathing his sword and eyeing Arwin. “Did you take a damned bite out of a rock monster?”

“Bone,” Arwin corrected. “And I may have – which is something I’d appreciate you keep to yourself.”

The air before Arwin shimmered, and he blinked in surprise. The gargoyle had been troublesome, but he hadn’t expected to get any sort of achievement for taking it out. It wasn’t like he was going to complain, though.

Achievement: [Rock and Stone] has been earned.

[Rock and Stone] – Awarded for hitting a magical rock with a magical hammer really hard. Effects: Forging materials. This achievement has been consumed.

This gargoyle wasn’t made out of rock, though. It was made out of bone.

The Mesh seemed to take offense to Arwin’s thoughts, because the materials he had been promised manifested themselves directly above his head. He jumped out of the way a moment before several ivory colored bars fell to the ground with loud clangs.

“Well,” Arwin said, brushing his shoulder off and clearing his throat. “That was convenient. Nobody got hurt, right?”

“We can’t just gloss over the fact that you took a bite out of the gargoyle,” Rodrick said, looking at the others. “Right? I mean, how are your teeth still in your mouth?”

“I was more focused on biting than it was on not getting bitten.”

“You – oh, come on,” Rodrick groaned. “That’s just gibberish. You’re screwing with me.”

“Maybe,” Arwin said with a dry laugh. “Does it really matter? We’ve all got our secrets.”

Rodrick opened his mouth, then let it fall shut and sighed, rubbing the back of his neck and shaking his head. “I suppose so. Fine. I figured you had some sort of nasty ability anyway, so I shouldn’t be surprised.”

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“If anything, I’m more surprised by Lillia,” Anna said, glancing at the demon queen out of the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t realize you were a mage.”

“I’m not,” Lillia said. “I just have a few combat abilities that I happened to earn. I’m an innkeeper. Nothing more.”

“Right,” Anna said. “Well, Arwin said it first. We’ve got our own secrets, and it’s not right to pry when Lillia just used her abilities to help us. Isn’t that right?”

It was Rodrick’s turn to clear his throat. He nodded. “Right. Don’t worry, I won’t press. Just curiosity getting the better of me. But… uh, could I ask one more question?”

“You can ask, but it doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”

“What in the world is that hammer of yours?” Rodrick asked. “I’ve never seen a weapon literally spit flame like that. Don’t tell me that it’s also…”

I’m not sharing too much information about Living Forge yet, but I trust Rodrick and Anna enough to spill a few secrets about my equipment. It’s not like they don’t already know I can make magical equipment.

“Magical?” Arwin asked. “Yeah. It is.”

Rodrick swallowed. Heavily. “Feel free to ignore this, but that seems like a whole lot more than just a basic enchantment.”

“Is it?” Arwin asked, tilting his head to the side. “It’s a Unique weapon, so it can be hard to tell how good it is sometimes. It interacts with one of my abilities, which is probably why the fire was so impressive.”

Rodrick’s eyes bored into Arwin’s head. “You made a Unique weapon that specifically uses your abilities? It’s not just synergistic? A weapon specifically made for you?”

“That’s a lot of ways to say the exact same thing.”

All my equipment used to be custom made. I didn’t think it would be that much of a big difference from a normal magical item. I mean, it was definitely more effort, but does it warrant a reaction like this?

The look on Anna’s face told Arwin that it did. Her lower jaw hanging askew as she gaped at him in disbelief.

“I’m pretty sure that hammer might be the most expensive thing I’ve seen ever since leaving the Adventurer’s Guild,” Rodrick breathed. “I am unbelievably glad that I can’t see what its abilities are. I think I might actually die of jealousy. Can you–”

“Rodrick,” Anna snapped.

He coughed, collecting himself as his cheeks reddened. “Never mind. Sorry. If you ever decide you’re looking to sell something like that, please keep me somewhere at the top of the list. I’ll do whatever it takes. Well, most things. Actually, just a few things. But most of them involve money.”

“I’m first,” Reya said, glaring at Rodrick. “I already booked my spot in line.”

“Then count me in as second. I’ll be your man forever. Well, mostly. A few bits belong to Anna, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if she also got on the list.”

“Depends which bits,” Anna said dryly, bumping her shoulder against Rodrick’s playfully before giving Arwin a serious look. “Seriously, though. Don’t flash that thing around unless you want to get murdered.”

Noted. I wonder what Rodrick’s reaction would be if he found out that the weapon gets stronger every time I kill or make something with it. He’d probably pass out on the spot.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Arwin said with a nod. “I didn’t realize it was that rare. Thanks for the heads up, Anna, Rodrick.”

“Yeah,” Rodrick muttered, still staring in disbelief. “No problem. You don’t have to ask me to keep this secret, by the way. I’ll die before I let anybody else know, if only to hope that I can hopefully get my hands one of those things first.”

As fair a reason as any.

Lillia stood up, brushing her knees off and gazing at the remains of the monster with a disappointed frown. “I was really hoping I’d be able to eat this.”

“You didn’t get an achievement for helping out?” Rodrick asked. “I would have thought an innkeeper would get something for taking out a monster like this, even if it wasn’t what you were looking for.”

“No, I did,” Lillia admitted. “It just wasn’t what I was hoping for. It’s an ability upgrade.”

“Are you kidding me? You’re complaining about that?” Reya demanded. “That’s incredible!”

Lillia sent a despondent look at the rubble. “Yeah. I just got excited. Imagine how excited people would be to eat gargoyle. Could you imagine? It would be incredible. The meal of a lifetime.”

Talk about dedicated to her craft. Did Lillia always want to be a chef or something?

Arwin shook his head and knelt beside the bars of metal he’d been awarded with. He picked one of them up, testing its weight in his hand. It was heavier than the Brightsteel, but not unbearably so. For a bar its size, it seemed quite balanced.

I’ll have to test this out later. Doesn’t seem magical, but it looks like good metal. There’s a lot here – probably sixty or so pounds worth. I can make a lot with that. I believe an average set of plate armor is around thirty to fifty pounds, so I should be able to do a lot with this. Maybe I can finally get a full set.

Arwin glanced down at his chest and grimaced. The left side of his chest piece was completely shredded. The Mesh within it felt faint and distant. It had done a lot more for him than he’d thought during the fight – a furrow ran across the left half of his chest, only turning to a full rip when it reached his arm.

This piece is on its last legs. For one of my first pieces, it served its purpose. The effect is pretty damn useful too, even if it doesn’t always go off. Too useful to ignore. I’ll see if I can get this back to the forge and use [Soul Flame] to break it down and put the ability to use in a different piece of armor.

“Do we keep going?” Reya asked. “The only one that got hit was Arwin, right?”

“Yeah, but he nearly got ripped in half from just one cut,” Anna said, nodding to Arwin’s armor. “I mean, look at that. If that was anywhere else, he could be dead. I think we’re pushing our luck.”

“We could go deeper,” Lillia said, but Arwin was pretty sure she was more concerned with getting something to cook than she was with the actual threat anything further posed them. “The room after this one is likely going to be a little easier. There isn’t going to be another powerful monster like this just sitting around.”

“Maybe we should open the chest first?” Arwin suggested, nodding to the stone box beside the pillar that the gargoyle had been hanging off. “We can determine if we press farther or not after we see what’s in it.”

Nobody had any objection to that, so they crowed around the chest. Arwin knelt beside it and studied the latch, trying to figure out how it was locked. They hadn’t been graced with a key, and a lot of chests had traps that would trigger if their locks were broken. But, still, the Mesh rarely offered up prizes that were completely out of reach.

He just had to figure out how to –

Lillia squeezed in beside Arwin, not even bothering to tell him to move. She reached out, grabbing the lock from Arwin’s hands and sending a tendril of shadow into the hole. There was a soft pop a second later and the latch clicked open.

Arwin stared at the lock, not even registering their proximity. “How did you do that?”

“Made a shadow solid,” Lillia replied with a smug grin. She stood back up and brushed her pant legs off as she took a few steps back. “Feel free to open that without keeping me in the blast radius, though. You never know.”

Arwin snorted. He tossed the lock down and pulled the lid of the crate open slightly, squinting to see if there was a thread attached to anything. There didn’t seem to be, so he pulled the lid the rest of the way back.

Resting within the chest was a single dagger, made out of the same material that the gargoyle had been.

Bone Dagger: Average Quality

[Splintered Wrath] (3 Charges): This item was forged from the flesh of a living gargoyle, imbuing it with hatred. It leaves a piece of itself behind with every strike to worm into its victim’s bloodstream and seek out their heart. After all charges have been consumed, this item’s magic will be fully depleted, and it will irreparably shatter.