System Change

Chapter 426: ...and Whatnot

“Whew...” Derek said. “I thought Nathan may have been playing me for a fool this whole time.” He laughed. “That makes much more sense, though.”

“Definitely not me,” Nathan said with an embarrassed smile. “I’ve had a hard enough time just working my way up to this platinum rank. I’m not much for fighting, nor do I have the best abilities for running dungeons in a team. I’m more of a cartographer and adventurer than a fighter. I’m much better at gathering information from others than finding it out myself.”

“He’s being modest,” Cain interjected. “Most of the best dungeon guides we have are written by Nathan. His talent lies in seeing through lies and deceit and piecing together wholes from just fragments.”

“So, I take it you’ve written up quite the report or guide for the raid dungeon we just came back from?” Derek asked.

“That is why I’m here, actually,” Nathan replied. “I’m submitting my reports and the like. From everything I’ve gathered, it was a very strange dungeon—unprecedented, even.”

“It was,” Derek said, but he failed to mention that both Dave and the Origin System had their own parts in interfering with the dungeon, and that once it opened back up sometime far away in the future, it may be completely different. “At least you’ll have enough information to prepare any other...”

Derek paused mid-sentence as he felt an odd sensation coming from behind him. Instantly, he shifted into the void and pulled himself through a ripple to appear closer to the entrance to the building. He watched with wide eyes—while shifted—as a shape began to form from the ground up, just behind where he was previously standing.

Nathan was almost static as Derek looked over, but Cain seemed to still have a certain amount of awareness of Derek while he was shifted. The Guild Master’s head ever so slowly shifted toward Derek, and his eyes squinted as he looked in his direction—it was quite a bit slower than Alanah’s reaction, then her ensuing ability that allowed her to knock Derek out of his own skill.

However, neither Cain nor Nathan was what Derek really had his attention on—it was the slowly forming body from where he was just at. No, that isn’t slow, Derek thought. I’m void shifted right now, and it’s forming at a speed fast enough to seem normal. If I weren’t shifted, it would seem to be instant. Is this... teleportation? Is it the Guild Leader? Does he actually have an affinity with space or time? The thoughts ran rampant in Derek’s head as the person finished forming.

The man was standing facing Cain and Nathan, and would have been just behind Derek’s back if Derek had not moved first. From the back, he was wearing a pair of brown trousers and a tunic with a gold trim throughout—a golden trimmed belt was wrapped around his waist over his tunic. From the back, all Derek could see of his head was his dark brown hair with gray streaks through it.

Feeling that he was at a safe distance, Derek shifted back to reality and out of the void.

“Wha—” Nathan muttered as his brows shot up in surprise as he was now looking at the new arrival instead of Derek. “K-klaus?”

Cain’s reaction wasn’t as intense as Nathan’s. He’d been able to ‘see’—even if he couldn’t keep up—that some things were happening. When his eyes landed on Derek, he nodded slightly, then turned his focus back to the man in front of him—Klaus. Cain gave the man a short bow.

“Damn,” the man’s voice sounded out as he clicked his tongue and turned around. His eyes met Derek’s own, and he shook his head. “You’re much faster than I expected you to be.”

Finally getting a look at his face, he saw that the man’s clothing was just as casual as it seemed from the back. He was only wearing a loose tunic over a pair of pants, and his hair was parted as if it had just fallen naturally after being combed back. His eyes, though, they were what caught Derek’s attention. When he first saw them, they were shifting from one color to the next. First was green, then was pink, now they were silver-blue, but they seemed to have finally stopped changing once they landed on the color.

“You’re pretty quick yourself,” Derek answered casually. “I wasn’t expecting you to appear out of nowhere. My focus was on the door—waiting for you to come out like a normal person. Well... that is if you are the Guild Leader I’ve heard... not very much about.”

“You can call me Klaus,” the man said with a slight bow, then he yawned. “Excuse me... it’s been a long week.”

“Has it?” Derek asked. “Has it been a long week for you? I’m not sure I recall seeing you battling Indria and Astrus or creating new kingdoms with us. I guess you’ve had other, more important things to attend?”

“Don’t sell yourselves short, Derek—I can call you Derek, yes?”

“Sure...”

“Don’t sell yourselves short, Derek. I had all the faith that Ms. Swan and the young prince would be able to handle everything. Then you showed up with Ms. Swan’s second and the Walking Forge, and... almost everyone else who joined your raid. What would have been the point of me interfering at that point?”

“You could have interfered before we all got back,” Derek said.

“Why?” Klaus tilted his head and questioned.

“Because it’s your kingdom?” Derek said and asked at the same time. The conversation wasn’t going the way he expected.

“Yes.” The Guild Leader shrugged. “For the most part. Some wear and tear, but few casualties, and only at a couple of branch guilds. Wilmette could have been bad, but we evacuated quite quickly. Other than that, the Crown was so kind in taking in refugees, after all. It may have been worse had Savannah not been attacked, but that attack changed everything. I was very surprised the Ms. Swan stepped up to defend. She’s usually so... neutral.”

“I... see...” Derek said.

“Ah, but you’re not here for any of that, are you?” Klaus tilted his head and asked. “You’re here for your diamond badge. To be one of the very few to receive it. To be looked upon in envy by every other member of the guild, and whatnot.”

“I am,” Derek said, then he watched as Klaus’s casual expression he’d worn the entire time faded away. Then the man disintegrated, literally. One second, he was standing there talking, the next, and he was in countless small orbs or molecules. After that, Derek felt the same feeling as he had before, and he shifted back over to Cain and Nathan.

“Damn,” Klaus called out as his body instantly formed where Derek had just been. “That’s one hell of a movement skill. I can’t tell if you’re moving extremely fast, or if time is just slowed for you. Are you in another dimension when using that skill? Very interesting. The void is a wonderful element, is it not?”

“It is,” Derek said as he covered a fist in void, then used Active Void Shift to make his own appearance behind Klaus. He pushed forward with a palm, aiming for the bottom of the man’s back—ruptured kidneys were a pain to fight with. When his hand reached the man, it pushed through as if nothing was there. The small particles scattered out from his midsection, then the rest of him scattered before reforming in front of Derek.

“Wow!” Klaus half-shouted. “That’s interesting. A very scary skill. No real strength involved, yet the damage occurs at such a... deep level.” He held his right palm up and a few small, inert balls of the matter that had scattered from Derek’s attack fell into it. He tapped the matter with his left index finger a few times slowly, then faster, then even faster until, eventually, the matter rose, then shot into the Guild Leader’s midsection.

“What the hell are you?” Derek asked in amazement. He reminded him of how Tevarian had changed his entire self into his dark blue ice or how Simeon had formed his body out of toxin, but still, the Guild Leader seemed different. A big difference was that Derek’s void was still able to hurt him, as shown by what happened after his attack.

“Me?” Klaus looked at Derek. “I’m the Guild Leader.”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Derek said.

“You should be more specific, then,” Klaus answered.

“What kind of skills are you using?” Derek wasn’t much of a science guy, but it seemed the Guild Leader could break his body—and clothing—down into small balls of matter. He wondered how small he could go even. Can he separate into molecules? Or even atoms? How would that work?

Instead of answering, Klaus smiled, then walked over to one of the tables that adventure teams would usually sit at. He reached down and grabbed a chair.

“Don’t do that...” Cain pleaded.

Klaus laughed, then Derek watched as the wooden chair disintegrated, then formed back together. But this time, it was in the shape of a metal spear.

“What the hell?” Derek thought out loud. Is he an alchemist? He was really too dumb for whatever was going on with the Guild Leader. But he didn’t have too much time to think, as the man soon threw the spear directly at Derek. Knowing that they weren’t going all out or doing anything that would really hurt one another, Derek, instead of dodging, held his hand up and blocked the spear with his palm.

The spear hit his palm, then stopped. Derek expected something insane to happen, but nothing did. Instead, once Derek caught it, it disintegrated once again. But this time, it didn’t reappear—not as another spear nor as a wooden chair. It was just gone.

“Why?” Cain asked from the side.

“He wanted to know what my skill was...” Klaus said with a shrug.

“And how does that help?”

“Well... that was Molecular Reconstruction,” Klaus said, telling them the name of the skill.

So it can be at a molecular level? That’s way above my pay grade. “Oh...” Derek said. Then, he caught another object flying quickly toward him and looked at it. It was a badge—a diamond badge.

“You can give your other one to Cain. He’ll take care of the rest...” Klaus said with another yawn. “Congratulations on becoming a diamond ranked adventurer. May you be a shining example of what other adventurers... yada yada... and whatnot...”