The Oracle Paths

The brat known as Trash then sat there in a state of utter daze as Jake groomed himself with a pair of scissors he had forged in his spare time, cutting his hair in a new style that was more to his liking, then shaving as best as he could with one of his claws. He then donned new clothes at his size, taking the opportunity to wear the New Earth armor that hadn't been fitting him for ages.

Once satisfied with the result, Jake gave his most charming smile to the mirror, and jokingly said to the teenager,

"Still scary, huh?

Refusing to tread on this minefield, the youngster swallowed with difficulty and begged in a shy whisper,

"...chocolate."

"What?"

"Can I have chocolate again?" He gathered his courage and asked in a more confident voice.

"Oh, knock yourself out." Jake smiled as he tossed him the rest of the package.

While Trash filled his belly, Jake returned to the previous crime scene. The kid had mentioned a map in Uncle Oaf's possession. If his corpse hadn't been eaten or looted, his stuff must still be out there.

There were still a few scavengers and flesh-eating monsters around, and when they saw him appear back in a shape easier to the eye, they didn't make the connection with the spooky giant from earlier.

An out-of-sorts avian alien, which could have been the offspring of a sow copulating with a crow, pounced on him with its jagged beak stretched wide open to chomp down on him, but all it bit into was the studded metal of a large boot.

Bang!

"Fuck off!" Jake roared as he retracted his leg.

He had no patience with this kind of nuisance.

Now that he had regained a more human appearance and his aura was contained, he wasn't as daunting. One couldn't have everything in life. Choices must be made.

As for the raven-like alien, thanks to its long flexible neck, its head remained attached somehow to its shoulders, but its face and beak caved in, its eyeballs imploded under the pressure while the back of its head violently slammed into its tailbone...

It couldn't be more dead.

Gulp!

The other aliens and beasts that tried to attack him shriveled up, one of them even defecating on itself. No more monsters came near him after this incident.

The battlefield had spread far and wide and searching for that map could have wasted a lot of time if he didn't have his Oracle Device. One scan later, he found Uncle Oaf, or whatever was left of him.

The mercenary gang leader also lived up to his name. He was a slightly balding man in his fifties who was fat enough to be described as morbidly obese. In this physically demanding environment, where their lives were constantly on the line, this was a feat requiring more than just " discipline ", but also some form of foolhardiness.

Unfortunately, this time, his overweight and the concomitant slowness had probably brought him down. He had been bled to death by his many wounds and no doubt these monsters had tasted his flesh while he was still alive, as evidenced by his wrathful and disgruntled face.

These attackers must have found the taste unsatisfactory, perhaps the meat was too greasy or boozy, because they had not kept devouring him after his death. His killers were not after his equipment either. This was lucky for him, or he would have needed to expend his energy hunting them down for a measly piece of parchment.

Ignoring the other monsters feeding on their victims, Jake impatiently unfolded the parchment and finally got a clear picture of where he was. This map was limited to the Ret'Asi Empire, but that was enough for now.

There were 16 provinces in total, but that was of no importance to him. What he wanted to know was how far away he was from the Celestial City. Sadly, according to Trash it was not in their empire, but much further north.

For the kid who was already surviving by the day, the end of the world was too abstract a concept. Even this Uncle Oaf didn't know any better.

His instincts told him that just getting to the city in time would be a major challenge.

The map did show the outline of the empire's border countries as well as prominent cities, and that gave him a definite direction.

He currently had three options. Continue immediately west to leave the empire forever and enter the state of Khinchod, a nation populated by non-humans, or join one of the two nearest large cities of Icarden, named Lodunvals and Laudarkvik.

The location of these two cities was no accident. The few holes in the dark cloud curtain covering this planetary area that let the sun shine through were precisely the locations chosen for these two cities.

Lodunvals was brightly lit and conveniently located, whereas Laudarkvik was only sunny for one or two hours a day and close to the Wilderness. For ordinary humans, the choice was easy.

The Wilderness was any land populated by monsters over which the many civilized states had no jurisdiction or control. The civilized world formed by a coalition of empires and kingdoms of many races was only a tiny, explored and known part of a much larger world. Even within the states themselves, the Icarden Province being a prime example, the Wilderness took up a significant chunk of their territory.

The big agglomerating cities like Lodunvals and Laudarkvik used the numerous guilds and the untarnished reputation of their Aurae Cathedral to issue orders for missions and quests that many desperate adventurers and mercenaries like this gang would eagerly complete. Often at the cost of their lives.

Trash had personally only visited Lodunvals, which was still more or less civilized, but Laudarkvik was more suitable for mutants like Jake. On the flip side, this city and the territory under its jurisdiction was practically outlawed. Without sufficient strength, it was better to never set foot there or accept the prospect of losing your life and worse at any moment.

Having found what he was looking for, Jake went back to the teenager, who was done with his meal based on the pile of plastic wrappers lying on the floor. So much for his environmental aspirations. This planet clearly had more pressing concerns.

Recognizing the object in Jake's hands, the youngster shuddered.

"Un-Uncle Oaf?" He asked with vain hope.

"Dead." Jake replied impassively. He didn't have time to sugarcoat a brat.

Against all odds, Trash did not start crying again. He had clearly seen the fat man succumb to his wounds through his very own eyes. It was impossible to survive that. Just that when he saw the map, he had nevertheless felt a surge of hope, which was soon overtaken by reality.

With the orphan pointing north, Jake didn't even need to use his Shadow Guide to find his way. With the help of the map, the duo set off.

Before leaving, Jake had offered to retrieve the uneaten corpses of the other mercenaries from his gang so that their families could give them a proper funeral, but Trash testified that this was unnecessary and burdensome.

This gang was not at the bottom of the social adventurer hierarchy, but not that far from the worst. They were an F-level group of adventurers, with the lowest level going as low as H.

Individually, each of these mercenaries also had their own level of accreditation, and their former leader was only an E-level himself. Trash Runt was about to become an F-level adventurer, so he was technically still a peak G-level one.

According to the official Guild of Adventurers classification, this meant that this gang was barely competent enough for simple escorting or fending off mobs and animals attacking herds and villages. Trash could take out the small beasts of the Wilderness in single combat and had a fair chance against a newly born goblin or two.

In peacetime, these mediocre skills were all they needed to make a living, but these days they've become inadequate. Laid-back missions like escorting herbalists on their hike through the forest had turned into "Repel the monster horde from somewhere for a pittance."

It was hardly a joke. Between the wars and large-scale monster invasions flooding in from the Wilderness every day by the millions, Icarden Province's defensive capabilities had been stretched to the limit, as had their food resources.

Protecting a flock of sheep from an ordinary stray wolf, even from a pack, was no small task for professionals. Defending the same herd from 25,000 monsters when there were only 36 of them was a different matter altogether...

Listening to the kid's depressing rant, Jake could only silently sympathize.

'The true mystery is why all these monsters decided to attack such a remote province.' Jake thought inwardly, striving to remain positive.

[It's not exactly a mystery, I think it makes perfect sense, in fact.] Xi abruptly disagreed with him.

Jake quickly regarded the matter from all angles and concurred.

The ultimate goal of every living thing on this planet was to get on board the Celestial City, including himself. With official recruitment over, there had to be other legitimate ways to be accepted into the Divine Academy, but the easiest way was simply to claim a piece of land in the Celestial City.

His Ordeal synopsis stated that a section of the flying island had been allocated to the other survivors and that they could share it as they saw fit. Intuitively, one might assume that all they had to do was hurry up and claim a piece of the island before all the spots were taken.

A huge mistake.