"Stay here, I will go to Tristam Cathedral and find your uncle for you."
"Why are you doing this?"
'?'
Pausing in his movements, Slade looked at Leah who was kneeling on the ground from the aftermath for praying for the guards souls.
"What do you mean by that?"
Getting up from the ground she looked directly at his eyes, meeting her own brown eyes to the black ones.
"Why is it that you are helping me save my uncle, according to the normal process of things, people usually ask for something if they are going to do it."
Slightly confused at the reasoning he shook his head. "I mean... Can't I just say that I want to do it?"
She shook her head. "Even if you say that, in this world, nothing is free, and even if it is at first then the price would come later."
Glaring directly into Slade's black eyes, the resolve within her own brown ones surprised Slade as the conviction in them wasn't something that a normal girl should possess.
"So tell me Crusader."
Stepping closer and closer until she was nearly parallel to his chestplate, she touched it. "What is your price and why do you do this?"
Slightly flustered now, he shook his head as memories of the one where he was an officer and the one where he was a Crusader's apprentice surged up and instantly connected with each other to help him solve his predicament.
And the results of their combined brain power resulted into two parallel thinking lines.
-Tell her that we just do it because we have to otherwise people will die.-
=Tell her it is because death isn't a pretty thing and nobody should experience it.=
And luckily enough, the two answers they gave were pretty similar.
Summarising both answers he honestly opened his mouth.
"The price I am about to tell you is the one you do not believe in, and for the reason, isn't it because I have to do it?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Death is something that you shouldn't experience at a young age."
"..." She furrowed her brows as her gut kept telling her something was wrong even as the logic was sound.
Glancing at the man who was in the midst of climbing the ladder and was nearly at the top, she finally realized what the inconsistency was.
"Wait a minute, Aren't you the same age as me!?"
Shouting loudly to no avail, Slade quietly slinked off in the general direction of the cathedral.
it wasn't hard to find either as the village was built in a primarily church centric position.
He only needed to go the town centre and look for the highest part of the village which was...
'Right here.'
Taking sight of the old towering behemoth of a building made out of hand worked stones and covered in colored glass panes arranged into the image of angels.
Slade opened the rusty wooden door and felt the feeble resistance it put off.
'Why is it rusty.'
Noting that the door was unbearably rusty to the point of making rusty screeching noises, Slade's mind instantly was pushed into overdrive right before a sword appeared in his hands.
Putting it horizontally across his chest, a loud ringing sound filled the once empty church sending Slade flying outwards.
'Holy hell.'
Feeling the dull sensation transmitted from his sword to his arm, with lingering fears in his heart, Slade looked at the figure in the cathedral and was surprised to see who, or rather what, it was.
A fat bloated monstrosity that was about three times his width and twice his height stood there.
[Ravenous Dead]
Covered in various stitches alongside the several much larger main ones that held the bloated being together, the Ravenous Dead was something that Slade wasn't expecting to see at all.
'Aren't the ravenous dead supposed to be in the lower levels, what is it doing at the surface!?'
Safe to say her was slightly panicked.
But thankfully, due to long time experience with unexpected situations, he calmed himself down.
'No wait Slade, this is reality, don't forget that the beings here are not constrained by the rules and everything is still in the testing phases.'
Recalling how the strange man in the diary seemed to exploit loopholes previously not found in the Diablo series, he nodded his head.
For example in his escapades in the world, he used the hand of a renowned general to help him exterminate various hidden strongholds ahead of time before they could be a problem.
So that goes to show that the rules of this world were definitely more lenient than before.
Slashing out a [Slash] which was a manifestation of him not being bound by the rules, his fiery blade cut through the air and landed onto the fat body of the Ravenous dead.
And as if some sort of invisible ring bell had been rung, they both began to fight.
Now this was reality, and reality followed the rule of equivalent exchange where energy can only be converted.
And converted it indeed became.
Flaming blade marks filled the air as they flew at the Ravenous dead and lashed against it's pale dead body, marking it with jet black scorch marks.
And not one to be outdone, the Ravenous Dead raised its hands in the air and waved them crazily all the while the slashes landed onto its body.
Slade, knowing the danger of its body also kept a good distance from it, the problem was that when raising its arms to run, despite its x axis blessed size, it could run incredibly fast.
Face planting directly into a nearby wall and turning the building into rubble filled to the brim with dust, a bit of sweat rose on his head.
'God, I really admire the game characters that can take that hit and not even flinch.'
Gaining a new respect to the intangible game characters that worked within the rules Slade immediately dual wielded blades and equipped the Slash Skill.
'Now nothing against you, but you are a tanky guy, so just stay like that.'
Facing the fat behind of the Ravenous Dead that was covered in blood and fat, he swung his blades unleashing gouts of flame.
Gouts of flame that met stone dust as the Ravenous Dead had finally decided to pull itself out of the rubble.
And must he say, Slade really found the Ravenous dead incredibly disgusting.
Eyes staring at the black spikes piercing the rubble, they slowly retracted into the Ravenous deads body.
It was in a speed that it wasn't terrifying fast or disgustingly slow.
It was somewhere in the middle where the speed of things was... disgusting to say the least.
Face changing, Slade stared at the black spikes slushily entering the body through the many stitched together wounds all around its body.
an unknown liquid leaking out of the wounds, they dripped onto the ground and ate through it with a hiss.
Face changing, Slade immediately backpedalled dodging a spike that jumped up from the sky to the ground.
'What the hell!?'
Feeling a chill climb up from the base of his spine, Slade dragged his eyes to the side where a series of Quill Fiends licked their teeth with long tongues.
'Ok...'
Blinking a few times while spinning around to dodge the spines shot out by the quill fiends, Slade felt a confusion broil in his mind.
It was really weird.
'Now I know that this is reality and there aren't as many rules in the world like that in the game, but this is just outrageous.'
Knowing from the lore that unless prompted to move by outside forces like terrain changes and the change of seasons monsters wouldn't move around much
It really was strange that not only one creature of the depths but two different types were to rise.
Eyeing the Ravenous dead now rushing forwards crazily while the Quill fiends lay out supporting fire, the dark sky seemed to be peppered with spikes some friendly and some not.
Rolling past the spikes which instead landed on the Ravenous dead.
The fat undead being ignored the damage done to its body while blobbily thumping forwards.
If he had to exaggerate, it was as if some sort of living ball of rotting flesh was running forwards.
Covered in pale skin and red wounds, black scorch marks soon touched the pale skin in addition to the falling spikes.
Watching the Ravenous dead now covered in black scorch marks to the point of appearing like some sort of different being charge into another building and get buried in the rubble, Slade tripped.
'OH SHIT!'
Already knowing how deadly a brief vulnerability could be in the heat of a battle, with painful manuevers that seemed to twist his back into a pretzel, Slade quickly spun around and charged at the source of problems.
The Quill fiends.
Now it wasn't really obvious when he was fighting them in the dark forest of mother witches, but the Quills thrown by Quill fiends.
They didn't disappear.
Now that was just a given as they were physical objects in reality, but in the game they really weren't.
Since every throw of the Quill fiend usually led to the quills landing on their target and subsequently disappearing in exchange for a portion of the health bar Slade subconsciously thought that it would be the same even in reality.
The problem was that reality was reality and the game was a game.
Turning around and stabbing the sword into the ground to support his charge, his now free hand throbbing from the force applied onto it ripped a quill out of the ground.
Relying on the remaining centrifugal force from twisting his falling body upright, he threw the quill and embedded it into the neck of a Quill fiend.
Or what he would like it to do.
In reality, he had aimed for a head shot with the Quill, and although they would both lead to the same result, the process of which saddened Slade.
'I really have become rusty haven't I'
Seeing as he couldn't even do such a simple thing such as throw a quill at speedy speeds to accurately land deep into the enemies brain, Slade lightly chided himself.
The fact that he wasn't wildly killing everything like in his glory days really made it an even harder blow.
Spinning around, a wide arc of flame cut through the guts of the Quill fiends, turning the five blue skinned monsters into ten.
Realising the five years departure from the military had dulled his fangs, he quickly resolved himself to make it better when he dives deeper into Tristam Cathedral.
But first, just what the hell had happened in the Cathedral for it to spew out these big fuckers?
+++
I forgor to upload yesterday...
Tree