Tears of Alron (The Alchemist Book #3): LitRPG Series

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “The second is twenty-five meters to the left, sitting behind that big branch,” Tailyn said.

  “And the third is with the wagon. He’s the weakest of the trio, but he’s still dangerous. Tailyn, get your shield ready. These guys like alchemy.”

  A full-height shield they used to train appeared in the boy’s hands.

  “Mage, you stay in the center — you’re useless for now. Tailyn, you haven’t forgotten your dragon, have you? We could use its protection. Valia, when you get to the bank, have your animals at the ready. We’re going to need panthers. Lots of panthers.”

  Valanil spoke clearly and quickly, almost as though she’d spent her life running defenses against mage hunters. The latter stopped moving when they sensed something was wrong.

  You used Dragon.

  Charges remaining: 3 of 5.

  The boy quickly wrapped his companion around his wrist. In a battle against mages, Li-Ho-Dun would only get in the way, and Tailyn didn’t want to lose him again.

  “We’ll start with fire to force them to use their potions. Tailyn, you go right; I’ll take the left. Ten charges. Mage, get ready to fire away with darkness as soon as they move. Valia, head toward the wagon and drink a salamander potion. Go!”

  Ka-Li.

  The clearing full of fallen debris lit up. Tailyn had even downed a magic enhancement potion to make sure his fire was as hot as it would go. Even though he knew the mages wouldn’t have a problem surviving the fiery vortex, the branches around them would at least burn up.

  “Acid!” the woman yelled, and Tailyn saw three flasks flying toward them. It didn’t occur to him to wonder how she’d figured out what was coming their way. Grabbing hold of his shield with both hands, he thrust it forward in the direction of the flasks. They shattered, and the enormous shield was gone before it could hit the ground. But Tailyn had already pulled the next rectangular piece of metal out of his inventory. Valanil had taught him well.

  “Freeze!”

  The next round of flasks came flying, though the boy didn’t have to throw anything away that time. He crouched down, his back pressed against Valanil’s, and wedged his shield against the ground. It formed a metal tent with Valanil’s behind him. But even safe on both sides, they still pulled out another shield to cover one of the openings.

  “Mage, get in here!” Valanil yanked Forian into cover, and that was when the hunters’ grenades landed. The shields were covered with a thick layer of ice, but that was the extent of the damage.

  “Get up!” the woman barked. Finally. Forian could return fire. The branches crackled merrily, so it was easy to see their targets.

  “Their protection is too good. I can’t break through that quickly.”

  “Tailyn, let’s lay down fire again, right and left. Go!”

  The last set of waves still had more than thirty seconds left to burn, but Tailyn didn’t argue. If Valanil thought they needed to send off another round, that was what they needed to do.

  “Okay, now make your dragon drink this,” the woman said, pulling out a salamander potion. “Acid!”

  Yet again, flasks came flying. His ice-encased shield had grown heavy, though he was still able to throw it far enough away to make sure none of the liquid got on the group. And while he wasn’t sure how to make his dragon drink the potion, he yanked the cork out, pulled Li-Ho-Dun off his wrist, and gave a mental command. Drink.

  “Send him ahead, right above the ground. Once you get around behind your guy, hit him in the head with fire. Let’s see what those bastards do with dragon flames — they won’t be able to use crossbows with all that burning around them.”

  Almost as though he’d heard Valanil, the third mage hunter sent a crossbow bolt slamming into Tailyn. He’d had to stand up and take aim from more than a hundred meters away, too far away for magic, which meant he couldn’t do much to help his team. Even the bolt didn’t do much damage. Vargot deadened the force of the impact, too. Still, the mere fact that the hunters had singled Tailyn out as their primary target spoke volumes.

  “Valia, sweetie, the one in the wagon is yours. Send your panthers in after him.”

  “On it!”

  “Tailyn, your dragon. Take the one on the right. Mage, hold my shield and do exactly what Tailyn does. I’m off!”

  The heavy shield practically crushed Forian, and Valanil suddenly dashed off toward her target. A slender stiletto flashed in her hand. But Tailyn didn’t see any of that, as he was too busy sending his dragon flying around behind the second target. The latter was staring at the woman. From what he could tell, her move was suicidal — all Crobar fighters had reflection shields. Whatever she came up with, she was going to die. Magic was useless, and she had nothing on Zard in close combat.

  Those were the final thoughts that run through the head of Haros, a level fifty-three mage hunter. While his protection would have stood up against anything a level four weapon could have thrown at him, the level five dragon’s flames fried him to a crisp. Li-Ho-Dun struck quickly and precisely. The hunter’s head turned into a bagel complete with a hole in the middle, and it was right then that Valanil reached her target. The familiar reflection sphere flashed to separate her from the hunter’s grinning mug. Just like Haros, he thought she’d lost her mind, but everything turned south as he reached for his sword to take care of the crazed woman. She was holding a mage hunter stiletto. The moment he spent taken aback was enough for the enchanted blade to pierce the sphere and bury itself in Zard’s eye. Valanil wiggled it around to slice up his brain — regeneration wasn’t going to help him after that.

  Imir, a young man just twenty-two years old, was terrified. What had been a romp in the park had turned into a nightmare, both his mentors were dead, and the battle wasn’t a minute old. In fact, the mages had acted so smoothly that it looked like they’d been preparing to fight off a grenade attack their whole lives. But the worst part was that his crossbow hadn’t even done anything. The boy had fired off three bolts at their primary target, and he’d shrugged them all off even though Imir had always been taught that his insides should have been upside down by that point. What was going on?

  It was only when the panthers leaped onto the wagon that Imir heard them snarl. Valia had done her best, summoning fifteen level thirty-one creatures — that was the maximum she had at her disposal. And even though the Crobar hunter fought back ferociously, the crazed animals were too much for him. They leaped through fire. They kept coming through acid. They died, but they bit and clawed, working Imir’s shield down until one was able to sink its fangs into his head. Level fifteen wasn’t too much of a problem for them.

  You destroyed Evont, a squad of mage hunters.

  All group members receive +1 to a random attribute.

  Hacking +1 (3).

  “We have horses and an angry Tailyn now, at least.” Valanil came back to the group grinning from ear to ear. “My boy, care to put your marauding skills to the test? I would love to know why the academy’s head of security sent mage hunters after us. Forian, is there anything you’d like to fill us in on?”

  Forian looked over at the woman with newfound respect. Breaking through a defensive sphere was impressive. Unusual. Terrifyingly unusual.

  “He wouldn’t have done that. For him, family is everything, even more important than his service at the academy. He would never send killers after his own grandson.”

  Chapter 8

  “HE’S YOUR grandfather?!”

  The general expression of shock and wonder was so simultaneous, it was like the group had practiced it ahead of time.

  “That’s how I can be so sure of him,” Forian continued as though he hadn’t noticed their reaction. “Sadil will do everything he can to find the criminal. And he wasn’t the one who sent the Crobar killers after us — I don’t want to hear anything else on that count. Student, why do we still not know where the mage hunters came from? Do you need someone to push you again? Get to it!”

  They piled the bodies up, Forian g
rabbing the generally available loot just in case. Taking everything that belonged to the investigators, he said he would give it to their families. Nobody had a problem with that — after all, the loot was just a useless named weapon, level three armor, a booster amulet, a standard set of cards, and an empty bag with twenty slots. The only thing Tailyn might have had a problem with was their coins and gold, but that was set aside for the families, as well.

  The mage hunters offered much more interesting loot: two level four sets, one level two set, a few level three amulets, a named weapon, empty bags with twenty slots, and, most surprisingly, not a single magic card. Unfortunately, they kept their most valuable possessions in their inventory, and there was no access there. But that wasn’t the last of the problems. Tailyn got one of the sets of armor, and he tried to sell it before using his marauder skill. Vargot was better.

  “What do you mean, twenty thousand gold?” he muttered in surprise when he saw what the store was offering him. “What about coins?”

  There were none to speak of. The System would only give him gold for the loot he’d gotten from the hunters. And actually, it wasn’t just their armor — the same was true of everything. Forian’s expression darkened as the realization of what was going on dawned on him. Apparently, Crobar had found masters capable of creating exclusive equipment and deleting their names from the description, something they obviously did to make sure the masters weren’t hunted. Nobody else would have agreed to let Crobar hold on to them.

  Ultimately, there was nothing else to do but sell the useless equipment. Everyone in the group picked up 18,000 gold, just enough for them to laugh at — level four sets of armor cost 210,000 coins at the store, not to mention the amulets and bags.

  Active Marauder and Hacking attributes detected.

  Analyzing bodies...

  Active protection against marauders detected.

  Your attribute level: 33. Active protection level: 17. Verification complete.

  Location maps received (32).

  Location maps updated (7).

  Marauder level insufficient to access personal inventory (required: 64).

  Tailyn suddenly had a map of the entire empire as well as a few locations outside it. The only issue was that he didn’t see anything resembling Crobar, not even finding it when he entered the name in the search bar. Nothing. The mage hunters guarded their secrets carefully.

  The investigators had a map of the academy, however. And even though it wasn’t complete, it was still very detailed. Tailyn was intrigued to see the network of underground passageways spreading across several levels beneath the whole complex. A prison was housed in the fifth and lowest level. Actually, that was a surprise to Tailyn, as he hadn’t known the academy had one. The map wasn’t complete, either — Tailyn found his dean’s residence and noticed there weren’t any tunnels beneath it. The park with its residences stood out, in fact, as a small area of untouched soil. But Tailyn knew that wasn’t actually the case since he had access to a terminal right under the building, and that meant someone was trying to pull a fast one.

  Just as he was about to disconnect, having gotten everything he thought he could, Tailyn noticed a blinking button. Marauder hadn’t gotten him anything that great; it was hacking’s turn to see what it could do.

  Your attribute level: 18. Active protection level: 17. Verification complete.

  Access received to logs.

  Access received to personal information.

  ***

  Synchronizing logs. Your skill gives you access to the logs for the three hours prior to the moment Hacking was used.

  The personal information included a list of attributes and skills as well as their values. With no descriptions, the boy wasn’t sure what a few of them were, though some names made it pretty clear — calligraphy and executioner, for example. After writing the names down in his journal so he could head over to a temple later and see if he could find a use for them, Tailyn returned to the group and shared the logs. It was going to be easier for the four of them to go through them together.

  The investigator logs were useless. They’d been dead for the previous two and a half hours, so nothing had been recorded, and the rest of the time was occupied by them leaving the city and getting attacked. As it turned out, the four had been killed in a matter of seconds — they hadn’t had Valanil to tell them about the acid and freeze that were going to be thrown at them.

  With that said, their killers turned out to be far more informative. Tailyn noted a couple interesting entries:

  There they are! Just like the client said. Haros, you take the two closest to us; I’ll take the ones in the back. Imir, watch and remember how we kill mages.

  …

  Tie the bodies in place. Damn forest... How are we supposed to find the target?

  The client didn’t say?

  He didn’t know. Just somewhere in the forest, he said. Roll out — I think I saw something.

  …

  Yes, there they are. Haros, you flank around to the right. I’ll take the left. Imir, you have the wagon. Just in case, remember that the kid is our primary target. The girl can’t get hurt — the client needs her.

  What should we do with the mages?

  The same thing we always do. Let’s go. We need to figure out where the girl is so we make sure we don’t hit her by mistake.

  “Go ahead.” Sadil picked up the call almost immediately. He was sitting in his office going through paperwork, plenty to do despite the late hour. When he saw who was calling, he frowned.

  “What happened? Why are you still in Zardan Forest?”

  “You have a rat. The mages are dead.”

  Forian filled Sadil in on the events of the previous few hours, and Tailyn was impressed by how succinct and information-dense his mentor’s story turned out. With no fat left to trim, it was just a list of facts stated in a few words each.

  There was a pause as Sadil thought through what he’d just heard. Looking around his otherwise empty office, he regretted for once having set up a space for himself alone. It would have been nice to have somebody nearby to take his anger out on. But something was eating at him, and it took him a while to figure out what it was. Finally, having gone over the conversation in his head one more time, it hit him.

  “How were you able to get the logs? Did you torture the killers?”

  “My student has hacking at level three — he talked the god into giving it to him a couple days before the school year started. I already checked his logs, and everything was legal, though we won’t be able to replicate it. His partial initiation came to the rescue yet again.”

  “How did he even hear about hacking?”

  “From a book at the library. We were looking for a solution to my problem, and an ancient romance novel caught his eye. Actually, that’s where he heard about the tears of Alron, too.”

  “You realize what this means, don’t you?”

  “I’m not giving him to you!” Forian shot back. “He’s my student, and I won’t let you turn him into an executioner. You have enough investigators. Let Tailyn be an alchemist.”

  “It isn’t up for discussion, Forian Tarn! The moment you get back, the boy will be transferred to me — I’ll handle things with your dean. Have you unlocked the department attributes for Tailyn yet?”

  “No.”

  “And don’t you even think about it! No sense taking up slots for him. I need an investigator with hacking, Forian. I really do. But okay, we’ll come back to that when you’re here. Head into the Gray Lands and stay away from the academy for the next three months — I need to figure out who the client is and why they need Valia alive. There aren’t many people who know you’re in Zardan Forest, and I don’t like what that means. Leave the bodies where they are so we can pick them up in the morning. Oh, and I already knew about the Crobar masters, but thanks. I wasn’t aware they’d gotten to level four. Okay, good luck!”

  The shimmering circle disappeared, and Forian turned to the r
est of the group.

  “Get ready to move out! We’ll travel by night.”

  Tailyn took a couple steps and froze, staring in surprise at the message that had just popped up:

  You were away from the academy for more than 24 hours.

  Academy rating –5 (230).

  “Are you kidding me?” Valia exclaimed from off to the side. “Our rating just dropped!”

  “Of course — you’ve been missing from the academy for a full day,” Forian replied. “Students should study, not be off wandering around.”

  “We’re not wandering around!” The girl wasn’t taking the hit well. “We were dragged off against our will. Three months from now, we’ll be negative!”