The Harvester

Chapter 182: Full Shift

Rakna immediately felt the effects of his spell on himself. His eyelids became heavy and his body hunched reflexively. He half-closed his eyes and saw a black fog mix with the cold mist. It reached the green-skinned monsters, directly extracted their sloth and applied it to them at the same time.

The entirety of the camp was suddenly struck by a wave of tiredness. Some orcs and goblins even yawned and lied down to rest since they obviously didn’t know someone was attacking them right then. They were relaxed and comfortable to sleep.

Rakna observed that happening with a distant look. ‘This… will be… quite hard… to get used to,’ he thought groggily but that didn’t stop him from jumping down the wall. He landed on the ground with his typical show of finesse but, even though it didn’t hinder his speed or dexterity, there was a certain hint of laziness in his movements.

“{This is new. Lazy Rakna,}” Higure joked.

Rakna would have normally retorted but he didn’t. He was too lazy to do it. He wordlessly dashed at a goblin and stabbed its head with one of the daggers, his damage being boosted by the fact that no one was able to see his weapon. He instantly switched to another target and silently appeared behind it in one step.

One more swing and a head fell to his feet. He continued without stopping; he went around the camp, undetected, killing everything he saw. He was akin to a ghost. No one had noticed him and not even a sound had been made.

Meanwhile, Path of Absolution started feeding him more mana and stamina as he proportionally got sloppier in his movements. When he had killed about thirty of the monsters, he ultimately disengaged the spell and breathed in to clear his head.

He leaned on the wall of a small wooden hut and shook his head. ‘That… it was as if my conscious was gradually convincing itself that sleeping would resolve all my problems.’

“{That’s the definition of lazy all right.}”

Rakna snorted and glanced to his right through the fog. He threw his dagger and the sound of flesh being pierced was heard along with a thud. Soon, the weapon returned to his hand and he swung it to clean the blood.

‘There should be a chief somewhere,’ he said internally and tried to pinpoint the boss by smelling its aura. He concentrated for a minute before grimacing. ‘There is some disgusting smelling aura that way…’

“{Disgusting smell?}” Fray mused. “{Could it be…}”

Before the storyteller could finish, Rakna had already made his way to the top of a small wooden house. He turned Sonata into a Guandao and used it to make a hole on the roof. His freaky control as well as the oscillating cutting of the blade made it virtually inaudible.

Rakna grabbed the cut part before it fell and looked inside the house. Immediately, his expression darkened. He had a direct view of a room with a large crude bed where a massive creature with a pig head and green-white skin was sleeping. That thing was the source of the horrid smell.

But if that was only that, Rakna wouldn’t have been upset. No, he would have just gotten rid of the creature and left. It was the many lifeless bodies of women spread across the room. There were a large number of humans, and among the others, there were even a few of his ‘own’, wolf therians.

Rakna was oddly silent as he slowly put a cigarette in his mouth without lighting it.

“{A troll…}” Fray finished his sentence. “{They can only reproduce with other species.}”

“{Devourer?}” Higure carefully spoke up. When she didn’t get a response, she tried again with a rousing amount of concern. “{Rakna?}”

He ignored her and suddenly gritted his teeth. His hair and tails turned red and his cigarette was lit by the scorching hot aura that appeared.

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Obsidian Blood has been triggered!

Ireful Shell has escaped The Kind Demon’s Kin’s suppression.

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Ireful Shell rejoices!

Ireful Shell has leveled up to Exceled!

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“Forget stealth. I’ll blow up this mother fucking place,” he uttered with bloody eyes and raised his hand where a miniature volcanic star formed. Eleven others then popped up around it and began to orbit until they fused.

At this point, Rakna couldn’t care less. He would have gladly saved any survivors but in that state of his, he could only think of one thing to give them peace.

His mana signature was practically flooding the settlement and the mist had melted away, causing a very short-lived rain. The troll evidently woke up and the first thing it saw was a burning roof and a pair of crimson eyes.

The remaining green-skinned monsters in the camp began to cry out as they discovered the dead bodies and realized that there was an attack going on.

Pronos rushed back to Rakna when he felt the rage through their empathic link. When he jumped on the roof of the half-burned-down house, he was there in time to see his master transform into a crimson werewolf and sever the troll’s arm with one hand while the other held terror in the form of a volcanic star bomb.

“Pronos, get on,” he ordered with a riled tone. The little guy complied hesitatingly and got on the werewolf’s shoulder. Rakna deployed his reddish wings and flew off with his spell following him.

When he was high enough, he looked down and lashed out with his arm. His gesture generated a large auxiliary magic circle below him and he pointed the spell toward it. The runes on the circle spun and a few outer circles began to rotate.

“{Fueled by anger… he learned layered circles out of instinct…}” Higure remarked dumbfounded.

Rakna’s blazing eyes narrowed and he spoke up, “[Embers of Ardor Abide the Star’s Vehemence… Pierce the Heavens – Natcattiram Cataract!]”

The volcanic energy tightened and the spring was let loose. A blazing star descended on the camp and for those below it, the sight was akin to the sky falling. The troll roared and that was the last thing it did before the spell struck.

The ground shook for hundreds of meters and the blast that ensued felt like a volcanic eruption from underground. Countless debris flew into the sky ablaze and lava flowed out from the point of impact before also being ejected.

When the smoke and fire settled down, there was only a large crater filled to the brim with molten stone where carbonized wood and bodies were sinking and disappearing forever.

Rakna stood in the air watching it as a voice crept up in his mind.

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– MORE! MORE! DESTROY MORE! –

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Ireful Shell’s curse was reaching its highest stages of intensity. Normally, at that point, it wouldn’t be unnatural for anyone to give up their sanity. Rakna merely huffed loudly and growled.

“Fuck off,” he spat and reverted to a therian to smoke a second cigarette. But, to his shock, his hair, fur, and eyes stayed red this time. “Shit,” he cursed again and went as far as unrolling another joint and directly swallowing the medicine but to no avail.

“{Oh lord… is this really happening?}” Fray said quietly but he couldn’t hide his curiosity.

“Don’t even say it, bastard. I am this close from burning down a forest to calm myself,” Rakna said with an unusual tone of bare annoyance. “For fuck’s sake. It had to happen again…”

“{I will be honest…}” Higure started. “{I think I like unwound Rakna very much…}”

“Shut the hell up, cat.”

“{Hmm!}” The lioness blatantly moaned. “{Say it again!}” She shouted eagerly.

Fray gaped at her in the soul realm. “{I was aware of you being a creep… but not to this extent.}”

She rolled her eyes. “{Please, everyone has their kinks.}”

Rakna decided to ignore them and clicked his tongue. He glanced at something somewhat close to the crater and spotted a goblin fumbling around.

“I guess that one didn’t get caught by the explosion,” he sneered. “Let’s see what this does. Ignores distance they said…” He mumbled and swung Sonata. “Skulk Life Down,” he uttered and in the blink of an eye, the goblin in the distance was beheaded cleanly. “Hah! Fun. Probably only works if I can see them.”

“{Good lord, he just said ‘fun’! Did you hear?! He said ‘fun’!}”

“{Yep. Heard that,}” Higure said. “{But let’s talk serious business now. Rakna, what’s going on? You said ‘happen again’. Did you experience this before?}”

“The old man called it Full Shift,” he answered as he wore his scarf again. “It’s basically me getting to a saturating point, which forces my main personality to swap.”

“{Wait, so you’re stuck like this?}”

“Not really. It will last until I get an emotional shock… well, in the other way this time; something that cools me down.”

“{Is that what you did last time it happened?}”

“…no. The old man forced my psyche back with a lethal drug. So, it’s just a theory for now.”

“{…}”

“Well, I don’t see the problem anyway,” Rakna grinned and conjured a flame that somehow looked like lava flowing upward. “I kinda like burning and blowing up stuff.”

“{…I think the problem is more the grin you have on your face right now.}”

“What? Don’t you people always tell me to be more expressive? Then here you are. I’ll be so damn expressive you’ll wish I wasn’t.”

“{What about your meeting with Kaelith’s mother? Will you show up like this?}” Fray asked.

“Ah.”

“{Exactly. At the moment, you sound like a sociopath. Not a good first impression.}”

“Fuck off. It can’t be that bad.”

[It is,] Alexa suddenly said.

Rakna blinked and physically recoiled. “Well, I guess it’s true if Alexa says it. You can’t get much more objective than an AI does.”

[Thank you,] she responded roguishly and he actually laughed.

“See? You’re close to it now. You’ll become the best sarcastic AI ever.”

“{Really? That was your goal?}” Higure retorted incredulously.

“Obviously.”

“{…I feel like we’ll get a good insight on your inner thoughts while you’re in that state…}”

“It should fix itself sooner or later. The pig-faced bitch made me lose control for a bit but I got the completion prompt for the eradication of this place. It’s time to move on to my last Quests. I wanna see the promotion rewards,” he said flew away to somewhere else.

Meanwhile, Pronos was frozen like a statue with his mouth open. Listening to Rakna’s new speech pattern had been a shock that he couldn’t recover from so easily.

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About an hour later, Rakna landed behind a scared rabbit with black patches and ears that were longer than itself. “Finally!” He yelled and lifted the rabbit by the ears. He looked at the poor animal in the eyes with a mix of a glare and a blank face.

“Do you have any idea of how much I explored to find you?”

“Brii…” The bunny squealed fearfully whilst shivering.

“{You’ll scare the poor thing to death if you continue,}” Higure sighed.

Rakna grunted and used Sloth Magic to put the rabbit to sleep. He then made a small knife with volcanic energy and pricked the animal to collect a bit of its blood. “Why does anyone even need this thing’s blood?”

“{Cerf Rabbits have very special blood cells. It can heal or suppress many kinds of illnesses. I would presume that the giver of this task requires it regularly for themselves or another. Also, since they are a very rare species, hunters are demanded to not kill them and only collect a small amount of blood as to not risk their lives,}” Fray explained.

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Rakna finished getting the blood. He cleaned the small wound he made and placed the rabbit somewhere safe from predators. He then received the completion message.

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You have completed the Quest, It’s Not Easter Yet Though!

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You have finished 10 Quests! You are qualified for a promotion!

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Do you wish to be promoted to Rank II?

Yes/No

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