The Deranged Coven ( 12 )

* 1 Day Later *

ALRIGHTYY LAAADDD AND LASSEESSS

LETS GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD-!

| ' Empyrean of Winged Storm ' installed. Begining Cleanse. |

HAHAHA-! I almost forgot about this damn thing-! Good Thing I packed it in my inventory, this will help me finish this quest insanely quickly-! Those harpies that spawn will automatically seek out enemies and let me know exactly where I need to be, while the machine itself will be able to cleanse and upgrade the entire node surrounding this town-!

Aren't I the smartest guy ever-?!

... No?

Eh, whatever.

Alright, what was that again... a Coven of some sorts? Those three stalkers are probably them, wether hostile or not I'll probably have to eliminate them... unfortunately for me, they seem to be really hard to fucking find now-!

I wish I had radar magic or something similar, these fucking... wait, couldn't I... if the Node Machine emits a constant mana flow between it and the node to slowly manipulate it, couldn't I push a bit of my own mana through it and back for a large scale Mana Vision?

...

That might limit the quality of the image, but... Fuck it, lets do it.

Alright, so... let's see how this goes...

H..hey, I see the whole town... why is there a giant cathedral underneath the city?!? I'm... confused, how the fuck is this city not collapsing... there is no fucking supports or anything under it ..

Ugh, fuckin... whatever.

The Coven members have been found anyhow, their large mana signatures aren't hard to trace... but, it seems to me that they are at a school of some sort.

Like, a highschool. These are kids.

The quest said interacting with them was optional right? System, can I ignore them?

| Y... Yes but, they are a integral part of the quest... I actually recommend attempting to work together with them-! |

Die and eat shit in hell, they're kids. I am not bringing them into this shit, especially when they are in school. They need to study.

| Come on-! Its a classic trope-! |

... Three members, high school... Super power ful artifacts.. evil undead lurking under a depressed city while irregularly making attacks on the surface...

You fucking didn't system.

... Did you?

| ... |

Gross.

Alright, I am going to fucking nuke the cathedral with Void then... should I use Radiant or Normal?

| The cathedral is holding up the entire town-! You can't just nuke it-! |

Fuck you, I can do what I want. The quest says make a significant impact on the city, and that would be pretty fucking significant wouldn't it?

| ... One second. |

| Optional : Resolve this quest with no casualties and with proper care and consideration for the town and coven.

Additional reward: 100+ World Rep, 200 Gold Coins. |

Deal.

Alright, so you want me to do a dungeon crawl basically?

| Yes. |

Alright, I am assuming the towns problems are somehow connected to the underground cathedral... so, now, I can assume if I remove the problem then the rest will fall into the will of the Coven or whatever.

| Yes. |

- " Alright, weapons out and ready. We are going for a dungeon raid, the target is an underground cathedral just below this city. We win, the city will be saved basically... and we get plenty of reward. If you see three figures with insane mana stalking us or fighting undead, leave them be. "

With no further words, I gathered Radiant Void energy into the apex of my pointer finger... and with a flash of Black Light, a round hole was bore straight through the earth we stood upon... straight towards the cathedral's entrance.

Time to go.

...

Wait, ... the Coven is nearby.

- " Everyone in the hole, leads straight towards a cathedral. Fuck everything up in there, got it? "

In Sync - " On it-! "

So, ditching school are they?

These Coven members are dedicated towards their jobs I guess, but I should definitely send them back. I'll be taking care of this issue now.

...

Alright, just got to wait for them to come near... they seem cautious, but they are not within earshot just yet... I can barely sense them without being connected to the Node, but they surely are there.

From what I can tell, my allies have already made it to the base of the tunnel I just recently m-... *cough * found.

Don't worry, I'll put it back or something later... I just didn't want to have to risk my allies in a fight like what is about to happen, that Mana signature held by the Coven is much more ' potent' then anything I've seen in a NPC before... besides the obvious ones, you know?

Alright, they seem to be slowly approaching now... trying to hide, but... man. They suck. I can already see them with Mana Vision but like, even if I could see them normally I would of spotted them like an hour ago.

Are they in Earshot yet?

... hard to tell..

God, this place sucks... Dead plants and waste everywhere... no grass anywhere... abhorrent. The Node will fix it soon though... oh, there they go... perfect, running straight towards me.

They don't even talk first, unprofessional if you ask me... hm, maybe I should challenge myself here... No guns, No Magic, No Alchemy, just my starter combat knife with some Void as a safety precaution.

Alright, two targets to my left... one to the right. Target on the right has the highest mana, seems to be using a spell... the two on the left seem to be weaker, one has a really weak mana signature while the other has... huh... that's a Cleric's Magic Signature.

Mage, Brawler, and Healer respectively.

Distance is closing...

Kek, here comes a spell... Power Beam, a relatively high Holy Spell... though, useless. It's easy to dodge with a sidestep as it is a very thin line that moves slowly.

... There it goes, flew right past me... unfortunately it didn't impact the enemies on my right, but whatever... They are running in physically, 15 meters.

Plan: Teleport Behind them, grab them by the back of their necks like geese, ???, discuss this civilly.

Alright you first, brawler.

...

Plan successful so far, wow, it is a lot easier to grab people by their necks then I remember... eh, let's see if the healer is any better...

...

...Nope.

Damn, you disgrace healers... If you can't even protect yourself how are you going to protect others? Alright then, let's see what Mr. Magic has to say about this.

...

Nothing? Really? No words?

I am holding your comrades by their throats right now-! If I were you, I would be screaming in anger right now-! ... Jeez, not interesting in the slightest.

I'll just toss them on the ground since you don't want to react to anything, what a joke...

...

Alright, well. That calmed them down somehow... this is fucking dumb, I am done... let me just teleport to the mage guy...

...

- " Listen kid, you need to work on losing your allies... when they get captured, your supposed to be either angry or sad.. not stone col- EOAH Hey-! Watch the sword kid-! Jeez... Alright, let me continue on since you don't want to talk or do anything in particular but stand still... Ok, so... listen, I just got a quest to save this town or whatever... so, I am not a threat to you I think.... you should be at school right now, I got this. "

...

- " Are you going to respond or anything? "

...

- " Fine. Whatever, I guess you shouldn't talk to strangers... "

...

What the fuck???

They are LITERALLY just standing there, System... what the fuck?

| I... I don't know? Did you hit them particularly hard? |

No, I just grabbed them a little... what the hell? Hm... Whatever, describe to me what they are wearing System... I kinda forgot my temp eyes.

| Of course, they are all wearing rugged brown cloaks that hide their bodies and faces... they are decorated with fancy red patterns, and just below the edge of the cloak you would easily see idol style boots. |

All of them?

| Yes. |

And they have Atlas World Items...

So, who sponsored these broken magical girls? ... Hm, speaking of which... might as well take a look at, let's see if I can take it...

...

Well, that was easily done... what kinda thing is thi-

" Hey-! You can't just take tha-! "

- " Now you wanna speak? Come on, work with me here. I can't fucking read your minds, who are you guys and what do you want? "

...

Great, silent again.

- " I am going to break this thing if you don't start talking. "

" Like you can bre- "

- " By talk, I don't mean Arrogant Chatter. I can easily break this thing, and then what? You lose your precious item, for nothing. So, talk. "

....

These fucking kids.

Alright, Void time... I am just going to straight up delete this fucking thing, it isn't even useful to me... ugh, if I knew this is what the system was going to give me then I wouldn't of accepted the quest.

Bam, Gone.

- " I warned ya. Now let's see, if breaking that wasn't a threat to you... lets break something else. "

" N-no, fine... Alright, we'll talk... "

- " Fucking finally! Jeez. Alright, I am a big advocate of Info for Info, so I'll ask you a question... you answer, then you ask me a question... and I answer-! Got it? "

" Y... yes. "

- " 1: Who are you kids. "

" The Rose Coven. We fight crime and devils. Who are you? "

- " Avery Hall. Refer to me as Cobalt. Do you realise you are fighting undead, not devils? "

" The Undead sometimes transform into Devils, we have been assigned to defeat both. "

" Why are you here? "

- " I am searching for someone, one of my party members wanted to save this town while on the way... and so, here I am. "

" You mean, you are here to fight Devils? "

- " Eh yeah, now I get two questions. Who is supporting you? "

" Goddess Radia. "

Son of a bitch... Alright, time to earn the title God Killer then I guess.

- " Can you like, summon her here or something? "

" Y-yeah... uh, one second... '

Alright, let's see what dumbass decided to call themselves a goddess and then put her ass back in line. That Radia bitch... god damnit, what a fucking loon.