(III) Struggle

44 (III) Struggle

The pantry was empty. So was the mana freezer. So were every condiment pack, bottle, and drink in the kitchen.

Several appliances had been destroyed. A small heap of ruined cutlery lay piled high, surrounded by broken plates, bowls, and shattered glass. Crude bone-adamantine replacements occupied their places on the tables and shelves. Bloody smears painted most corners of the room—left by someone slamming their fists and head against the walls. A dense cage of nigh-unbreakable bone layered the existing architecture, holding any actual devastation at bay.

In the center of the room lay a lifeless automaton. It had been screaming a day ago. It even tried to fight for its life when it felt the last sparks of its vitality slip away. But Master-Advisor Maxwell Oldsmith wasn’t a martial Pathbearer. And so, it died as unceremoniously as the slave-child it brutalized two days prior.

When it died, the worst of Shiv’s rage truly came on, and he experienced a new kind of suffering.

Two days. That’s how long the kitchen had been sealed now. Two days of hell. Two days of torment. Two days of a chef warring against his own madness as he twisted and writhed, trying to contain his rage, driving his natural skill against its twisted counterpart again and again in desperation to make something edible. He didn’t know how many things he cooked in those two days. Everything he could. Hundreds of dishes. Hundreds of meals. He tried all of them—and spat the food back out.

At one point, he nearly broke down crying. Instead, Shiv did the much more rational thing of sculpting a crude flesh replica of Georges from his corpses and imagined the man yelling insults at him. Or maybe Shiv had been speaking in his place. He wasn't sure anymore.

“No, chef!” Shiv shouted, sweat gushing down his face as it contorted in a wrathful, feverish delirium. “I’m just incompetent!”

flesh-replica Georges snapped.

“No, chef!”

Shiv’s hands trembled. He dropped the bowl and plates and clutched his head as they shattered on the floor. He reached out to strangle the fake Georges. He ended up wrapping his arms around the flesh creature and burying his face in its shoulder instead.

“I don’t know…” Shiv's breath was coming fast. “I don’t know if I can beat it. The rage doesn’t get tired… but I do. I'm so tired…”

“But I could control myself, then,” Shiv almost sobbed. “I could—”

“I wasn’t…”

“Years…”

Shiv shook. And sniffled. “Just that?”

Shiv stumbled away from Georges and did just that. Eggs. Scrambled eggs. It was barely cooking. But it was also the start. He remembered the first egg Georges had him make. He remembered the chef asking him if he knew what scrambled meant, or he had some kind of personal vendetta against eggs.

Remembering the sheer incredulity on Georges’s face made Shiv chuckle, even through the red, bubbling rage. “Egg. Scrambled. Plain. Let’s do this. Come on.”

The mana stove was ruined and smashed, so he resorted to using his own Pyromancy to heat one of the few pans he hadn’t ripped in half yet.

“Just eggs,” Shiv whispered, his focus threatening to snap. He bit down on his lip and invoked the Song of the Vigilant, bestowed upon him by the Composer. It didn’t do anything for the rage, but it helped with his focus. And maybe right now, that would be enough. “Just good enough. I just need you to be good enough.”

But that required absolute perfection when Culinary Berserker was in effect. It amplified everything he did in the kitchen. Everything. From cutting to frying to the taste of the flavoring. Everything. So he countered that by being . By cracking egg after egg until he didn't simply crush them between his fingers, then stirring egg after egg until they stopped being charred, then turned acceptable, and then, by the end of those two days, he bit down, and a distant memory swept through him with the taste.

It tasted… good.

It was…

the real Georges had said with a grin, then. All those years ago.

flesh-replica Georges finished, grinning.

Two days. And Shiv finally made something he could tolerate again. And a feeling rose above the constant rage—a dot of light spreading through the red.

He couldstill cook. Maybe not well yet, but he could get there again. Even if he was going to be angry forever. He might not be able to beat it, but he could master it. Learn to use it. Work around it. And that was how he felt as he took another bite.

Then, things inside his soul shattered. Shiv shivered as he felt a jolt of power rush through him.

Culinary Berserker > 50 (Skill Evolution Imminent)

Skill Evolution: Cooking (Initiate) > Tireless Gourmet (Adept)

Tireless Gourmet > 51

Skill Fusion: Culinary Berserker (Adept) - Tireless Gourmet (Adept) > The Chef Unwavering (Master)

The Chef Unwavering > 51

A single tear rolled down Shiv’s right cheek. And he laughed. The rage inside him shattered with the breaking and merging of the Orcish Skill. It blended with his Cooking—the two grinding against each other… But it was his Cooking that evolved first. And that was enough.

The pillar endured.

An indescribable rush of cool relief and excitement flooded through Shiv, and he almost collapsed then and there. He did it. The orc taint was broken before it could twist him further, before it could turn him into a monster. More than that, Shiv had a Cooking Skill. Master-Tier. At the previous rate, it would have taken… months? Years?

He almost wanted to thank 811 for this, except the next time he saw 812, he was going to kill the orc immediately. Shiv could endure a lot of pain, but this torture was beyond the flesh. He’d rather get cooked alive in the teleportation anchor again, and that was saying something.

Shiv mentally threatened the System.

This proved to be a mistake.

An Orcish Skill has been broken and reforged.

Attention: You have earned the curiosity of .

The Challenger has Cursed you!

You have earned a new Feat!

Curse Gained: Favored Archenemy - An orc will always be able to sense your presence, regardless of guise or appearance. An orc will always have a sense for where you are. Regardless of dimension, world, distance, or time, you are marked for an eternal war.

“What? Oh, great!” Shiv hissed. The damn orc god himself just had to piss on his triumph. “Really?” Shiv looked up at the ceiling, lined in bone and flesh as padding. “, System?”

Feat Gained: Master Of Rage (Master) - Allows the Pathbearer to infuse a skill with rage to increase its effectiveness. Consumes the Pathbearer’s anger.

Shiv blinked at the Feat—but he couldn’t really feel any changes. That was when he remembered a small problem with Feats: there was a capacity.

Feats

He Who Rises From Ash Eternal (Unique)

In Reserve

Master of Rage (Master)

“Well, that’s something,” Shiv breathed. It was like the ever-building rage had been harvested from the Culinary Berserker Skill and then shaped into a Feat that Shiv could use. Channeling his anger and the exaggerated effects that he got from Culinary Berserker was much better than just being consumed by it.

“Well,” Shiv said, taking a deep breath and feeling no more particular urge to hurt anyone. He spent a moment thinking about Heather. He still didn’t much like her, but that was fine. Maybe he might taunt her a bit with his power, but he didn’t want to hurt her. And she wasn’t even wrong earlier—he was kind of leveling like a monster. 811 had also said something like that. Shiv didn’t even mind. “Gods, that’s a weight off of me.” He shuddered as he remembered how casually he hurt the Inquisitors. They deserved death, but with what he did to them with the Biomancy and his kitchen knife… Shiv cringed. “Yeah. I think I hate the damn orcs now. All of them.”

Shiv paused and looked around. Flesh-replica Georges was gone. The kitchen was pretty much ruined. Oldsmith was dead. All this adamantine bone, though… “Yeah, maybe I should offer some additional weapons or a shield or something to the Slayers as an apology. And then maybe make myself a few more sets of armor.” Then he paused as he remembered another thing. “Shit, they were in there with the Inquisitors too… I think they tortured the bastards out of revenge. And I was too busy having a psychotic break from my Orcish Skill to really notice.”

Shiv groaned as he rubbed his eyes. “What a felling mess I made.”

He got up and put on his mask. A moment later, he successfully assumed Oldsmith as his Perfect Semblance. It wouldn’t be perfect. He didn’t really know how to walk like a bot, but with the constant anger, frustration, and urge to do violence receding, he could think again.

And he had an idea. One that didn’t require Tran or Heather to even risk themselves that much. In fact, they were all going to meet the Gate Lord to discuss Shiv’s death soon. Shiv grinned as he reached into his cloak and pulled out one of his reserve bodies. Confriga didn’t know about how he couldn’t die, and if Oldsmith and two of his personal bodyguard’s slew the “Aviary spy,” that might just allow the Gate Lord to activate the exits again anyway.

It was a pretty obvious plan once he thought about it. The damn rage really made him less of himself. Gathering all the usable biomass and bone with his Biomancy, Shiv staggered out from the kitchen—only to find Heather sitting on a couch while Tran tied a tourniquet around her left leg, the limb looking mangled. Both of the Slayers looked pretty beat up, and they were still wearing the skeletal armor Shiv made for them.

Heather bit back a scream of pain as Tran called for Siggy. The goblin came running, holding up a half-empty Potion of Regeneration. Which she promptly dropped as she noticed Shiv stepping out of the kitchen, wearing the guise of Oldsmith. While holding onto one of his old bodies. The Deathless, meanwhile, cast a wyrm out to consume Heather’s wounds.

“So,” Shiv said, studying the group as he dismissed his Perfect Semblance, revealing his true form. “I managed to make some scrambled eggs, fused a skill, got Cursed, and earned a Feat. What about you guys? You look like you were… ?”

Siggy held up a shaking hand and pointed at Heather. “T-t-trying to run away was her idea!”

“Oh, you little shit,” Heather hissed.

“Run away?” Shiv said.

“These two had me take them through the smuggling routes to find the surface exit! She tried opening it back up but ended up alerting half of the guards in the district instead! We barely got out! I-I didn’t want to leave you here! You got to trust me!”

“Huh,” Shiv said, observing the shameful expression on Tran’s face, and the terror on Heather’s. More than a bit of annoyance and anger swirled in the pit of his stomach. But Shiv remained decidedly composed. “It’s a good thing I managed to fuse that skill, guys. A real good thing.”

“We—we weren’t—” Tran started to explain.

“Tran, you know what? I don’t even care that you were planning on escaping without me.” Shiv looked back into the kitchen. He then realized they most definitely heard him screaming, pounding the walls, wrecking the kitchen, and talking to flesh-replica Georges for two days. Now that he thought about it, he actually couldn't blame them that much. “I was getting a bit volatile. Sorry about the, uh, .”

“It—it’s okay?” Tran said, sounding sure. “You’re really fine now?”

“I mad at you. And disappointed in you for being a bastard-coward who tried to escape without me. But hey, I was already disappointed in you for being a bastard-informant for the Town Lord.”

“So,” Heather said, the fear bleeding away slowly. “What now?”

Shiv narrowed his eyes at Heather. And applied just a bit of his Dread Aura as he glared. She looked away. Shiv chuckled.

“Now, we return to the actual plan of killing the Gate Lord alongside all his forces, freeing the slaves, securing the Animancy Core, opening the gate back up to the Abyss and the surface, and then getting back to Blackedge.”

Three sets of eyes blinked at him.

“We’re actually going to do that?” Tran asked in disbelief.

“Yeah,” Shiv said, not sure why the man was confused. Follow current novᴇls on novelhall.com

“I thought the ‘kill them all’ thing was just the Orcish Skill affecting you.”

“A bit. But they’re still slavers and child-killers, Tran. I wasn’t going to put up with that out of principle. And we need to end the lockdown. Now.” Shiv chucked one of his old corpses on the ground. “Let’s talk about how you two cowards managed to kill me. Somehow. While protecting your client, Master-Advisor Oldsmith, of course.”

Dread Aura > 61