Chronicle of the Eternal: Volume 1 (19 page)

Regal and Kilde holster
their revolvers and wield combat knives as they charge forward to hold back the
wolf. Veronica’s ‘Wind Chains’ passes between them and attempts to tie up the
wolf with multiple chains of wind, but it somehow manages to dodge all of them.

Regal uses ‘Radiant
Enchant’ from ‘Flame Forge Alchemy’, successfully attaching the ‘Radiant Flame’
to his combat knife and adding a small amount of fire damage to his total
attack.

Kilde’s knife emits a red
luster as he jabs and slashes at the wolf with the Divine Art from one of his
martial skills. Regal also jabs forward at the wolf, but the two series of
attacks only take another ten percent of its health and cause it to howl in
agony, entering a rage. Regal has to use ‘Foresight’ twice to avoid its counter
attacks as he is not as competent at melee combat as Kilde is.

“Quickly, get back,” Regal
says to Kilde as he notices it preparing to unleash its signature ‘Frost
Breath’.

The two retreat outside of
the attacks range, but the Frostbite Wolf dashes forward while unleashing the
breath, drastically increasing its range. The attack hits Regal and Kilde and
their limbs stiffen from the cold, slowing down their movements by twenty
percent.

The wolf doesn’t let this
chance pass and immediately attacks the two. Regal is slashed on the hip while
Kilde has a small piece of his thigh ripped out by the wolf’s teeth. Each
student loses thirty health points, just over a quarter of their maximum
health. They struggle back from the Frostbite Wolf with stiff limbs,
haphazardly swinging their combat knives at it to keep it away until they
recover their movement.

Another volley of Piora’s
‘Flame Cores’ and Astore’s ‘Stun Stones’ passes through and hits the wolf.
Veronica casts a second ‘Wind Chains’, which successfully binds the wolf. The
Frostbite Wolf will only be immobile for four seconds, but that is enough time
for the squad to take away a further fifty percent of its health.

Once the bindings are
released, the wolf only has a quarter of its health remaining. It is completely
furious now, blindly charging at the closest person – Regal.

Regal sees it happen
through the use of ‘Foresight’, but can’t evade in time as the wolf is simply
too fast. To Regal’s surprise and shock, the wolf claws across his chest and
brings his health well below half way.

“Everyone, Fire!” Regal
blindly fires at the wolf from point blank range, not a single bullet missing
and two of them even being critical hits.

Bullets blanket the wolf
as it snarls and tries to attack Regal. It manages to slash him one more time
before it falls dead. Regal looks at his eight points of health remaining with
panic, realizing how close he came to dying. Even worse, one of the bullets
fired at the wolf had hit him in the leg, bringing him to this point. He looks
over to see who fired the bullet, but nobody owns up to it.

“Astore, who shot me in
the leg?” Regal asks calmly.

Astore looks directly at
him and blandly says, “I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to say.”

Regal feels helpless and
doesn’t pursue the matter. He is technically a Soulless so he knows Astore’s
answer won’t change no matter how he asks him. He also knows that the only one
who could force him to not answer over there is Veronica, which is the main
reason why he doesn’t continue questioning it.

“We each gained eight
percent experience – Incredible. Let’s also have a look at the loot,” Regal
cheerfully says, changing the subject as he inspects the Frostbite Wolf’s
corpse.

The iron dagger is much
like the combat knife, and even comes under the same category of weapon, only
it is five inches longer and not a weapon intended for training.

Regal hands over the
dagger to Kilde since it suits him the best. The squad unanimously agrees that
Regal should get the Frostbite Wolf Fang as he nearly died, and the coins are
equally shared among the members.

Not only is Regal nearly
dead, but most of the squad is completely out of mana, Regal included. They
move back to the entrance room and rest, consuming some food to restore their
health.

The Frostbite Wolves are
dangerous, much more so than they initially thought, but Regal is still intent
on fighting them and the others follow his decision without complaint. After
all, they can’t complain about a captain who places himself in front to protect
them.

The squad repeats the
process of fighting a single Frostbite Wolf before retreating to recover
several more times. Each time they take slightly less damage as their personal
experience grows and they become more used to fighting the wolves.

Piora is the closest to
reaching level 3, at 72 percent towards the next level. The others are at 59
percent with Regal following shortly behind at 57 percent to the next level.

Regal and his squad stop
hunting Frostbite Wolves after that – not because they can’t anymore, but
because their food supply is running low and they won’t be able to recover
health without it.

“Next time, we will bring
lots more food,” Regal says depressed as he ascends the stairs, hoping not too
many rats have refilled the room.

The squad silently leaves
the second floor and returns to the first. Hunting rats has even become
significantly easier after fighting the Frostbite Wolves. Regal is unhappy when
he fights Mutant Rats, as the excitement and adrenaline of fighting the wolves
has made Mutant Rats feel dull. Despite that, he still diligently leads his
squad to kill the rats and collect their ears for the rest of the day.

Regal and the rest of his
squad easily pass through the first floor of Theore Substructure. Any rats they
come across are taken care of with high efficiency. They have improved their
combat skill and teamwork considerably since fighting the Frostbite Wolves and
the Mutant Rats have become less intimidating. Regal feels like they have
gotten slower too, but that is only something he sees from his new perspective.

They come across two other
squads while following Regal’s map toward the exit, but they are equally
exhausted and intend no violence against the Soulless so their encounters are
peaceful ones.

By the time Regal leads
his squad out of the dungeon, it is already late at night and the city is
covered with darkness. Only the copper street lamps and light shining out of
windows illuminate the cobblestone streets. The faint sound of a saxophone and
joyous laughter can be heard from a tavern a few streets away as hunters drink
late in the night and shout tales of their latest ventures.

‘I’ll be a part of that
one day,’ Regal muses to himself, a faint smile forming in the corner of his
mouth as he listens to the distant music and takes a large breath of the cool
refreshing night air.

Piora is the first to say
farewell, heading off toward her house. Kilde and Astore follow shortly after
and leave Veronica and Regal alone.

“S-so do you want to-“

“I will be going too then,
lil bro. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Regal begins talking in a
fluster at the same time as Veronica starts speaking. His cheeks tinge red in
embarrassment from speaking at the same time as her. He had wanted to know if
she wanted to walk back together as they live in the same direction from the
dungeon. Only half saying his thoughts, he is at a loss as to how to follow up.

Veronica gives Regal a
faint smile, the expression disappearing as fast as it appeared, before walking
off toward her home. As Regal’s home is in the same direction, he walks beside
her down the street in silence.

“Do you live in the same
direction?” Veronica breaks the silence after ten minutes.

“Er, yes.”

“I didn’t know. We should
walk back together next time we come to the dungeon.”

“Yes, I would like that.”

Regal smiles happily after
she asked him exactly what he wanted to ask her. He was distraught, wondering
how he should ask her, but her casually bringing up the subject soothed his
anxiety. He feels a warmth in his chest and subconsciously moves slightly
closer to Veronica as if to share it.

They share small talk as
they walk home together. On more than one occasion, Veronica notices Regal
staring at her hand swaying at her side. She asks him each time if there is
something on her hand, looking at it herself in the process. Regal walks in
uncomfortable silence while staring at the ground every time she brings it up,
unable to express his innermost thoughts.

The two separate when they
near Veronica’s home. Regal’s house is still half an hour’s walk, so he
continues along in silence.

When he eventually reaches
his house, the entire street is silent and not a single light can be seen from
the windows. He quietly enters the house and warily makes his way to his bed,
making sure he doesn’t trip on any furniture along the way.

***************************************************

Regal awakens with the
early morning light filling his room and feeling refreshed. He doesn’t take long
to prepare for the day and leave for Bluemist Academy. Compared to last night,
with only distant laughter and music being heard over the rooftops, Grand
Theore’s first floor is once again bustling with life.

All the students of
Regal’s academy arrive early to boast about their exploits from the trip into
the dungeon last night. It is similar to the hunters at the taverns last night,
except there is no alcohol or boisterous laughter.

“Regal, you’ve arrived.
You were in the dungeon late last night, what is your score?” A male student
from another squad Regal met last night when leaving the dungeon approaches him
and curiously asks.

Regal doesn’t know his
name, and awkwardly answers, “Oh, sorry, I haven’t counted them up yet, and I
can’t remember all their levels either. But our squad has 134 ears.”

“That’s not bad, we got a
total of 161 though, so it looks like we did a little better,” The student
laughs gently, patting Regal on the back before walking off.

Rather than waiting out
front, Regal excitedly enters into the academy building to hand the trophy ears
over to Mr. River as soon as possible. He isn’t surprised that the teacher
hasn’t arrived yet. The squad captains from class 4 have already been here to
do the same as him, but handed them to Miss Yatta in place of Mr. River.
Following their example, Regal also hands his squad’s trophy ears to Miss
Yatta, who will pass them on to Mr. River when he gets here.

The morning classes are
nothing out of the ordinary, but Mr. River informs them that the afternoon
classes are going to be martial duels with class 1. After lunch, the results
from everyone entering the dungeon also return. The people at the lower end of
the scale didn’t change much in score, but the top few have improved greatly
compared to last month.

“Why is Regal the squad
captain and not Veronica?” Some of the students quietly speak amongst
themselves when they notice Regal’s name is at the front of his squad.

Not even noticing the
whispers, Regal feels dejected that he is only a single point behind being
first, but that is mostly because his squad were hunting Frostbite Wolves. In
the amount of time it took to find and kill a single level 4 wolf, they could
have killed three or four level 2 Mutant Rats.

Just as Regal was feeling
down, Mr. River brings the class to silence with a light cough before
addressing them in a lazy tone. “Regal Havier’s squad: Congratulations on
entering the second floor and killing Frostbite Wolves.”

Noticing our massive
difference in scores and even the teacher’s praise toward the entire squad,
several of the students from the class lean toward Piora, who they credit the
massive boost in the squad’s points to. Many students invite her to join their
squad next time. Whether it is a verbal message or a folded up note that is
passed across the classroom, Piora blatantly rejects them and even starts to
get angry after the third offer.

Mr. River ignores the commotion
between the students as if it has nothing to do with him. He waves over a few
of the quieter students and starts leading them to the gym. The noisy students
quickly notice this and also follow them out.

Regal’s status in the
class has escalated greatly since the beginning of the year. Most of the other
students are friendly with him and don’t seem to be concerned that he is a
Soulless. His strength has also been increasing with the passive Divine Arts he
has been accumulating and that has made up for the lower martial and alchemy
skills difference when compared to other students. When added with his Divine
Art ‘Foresight’, there aren’t many students who can defeat him in a duel.

***************************************************

Regal’s weekend practice
of ‘Forging: Beginner’ changes a great deal week after week. When his skill
reached level 30, he could no longer train it by refining beginner ores and had
to start creating other items. It is also the level where he learned the Tier 4
Divine Art ‘Beginner Guncraft’, allowing him to create and repair basic guns.
The knowledge for two basic designs and various components were implanted into
his mind from the skill, and Tanner, the owner of Atelier Gun & Bullet,
offered guidance to further improve on those designs.

A basic revolver uses two
bronze ingots and a single iron ingot. Six cogs and a single spring have to be
carefully installed behind the bullet cylinder, which is how it operates. The
barrel is short and provides poor accuracy, but Tanner shows Regal how this can
be slightly modified to improve accuracy while keeping it the same gun. Each
part of the gun can be modified when casting each piece. From changing the
material used to making physical alterations, changes in the damage, accuracy,
durability and other aspects can be altered.

Regal’s first revolver
comes out as a failure, the parts not going together properly and then the gun
not even working.

Regal’s third attempt
finally creates a basic revolver of Ordinary rarity that works properly. It is
immediately discarded as its damage and range are inferior to the training
weapons the academy provides. He continually creates revolvers under Tanner’s
guidance, consistently improving his skill.

Weapons can be melted down
to reclaim some of their raw materials, but only a small amount of the base
material can be obtained. Regal has to melt down eight revolvers to get enough
material to get the two bronze and one iron back.

The second weapon design
is that of a basic rifle. This weapon uses four bronze, two iron, and one
copper ingot to create all the parts. A larger copper cog is the central part
of the gun’s mechanism. Eleven gears, three coils, and an iron piston are all
connected in a method that allows the bullets to be fired with more force.
Regal makes six attempts to create one before finally succeeding.

The damage is much higher
than a revolver and the range is incomparable, but each bullet must be loaded
individually and the user’s movement is slowed by equipping a heavier weapon.
The minimum level requirement for just this basic inferior rifle is level 5, so
nobody in his squad, let alone his class, can currently use it either.