Journey of a Valkyrie: Ultradimensional Life

Journey of a Valkyrie:
Part 5: Ultradimensional Life

    “Hiyah!”
The last cat monster vanished in a burst of data, leaving the clearing quiet again save the twitter of birds. Standing in the centre, I silently dispelled my sword and turned to head back to my current residence.
    Life in the countryside, living with Blanc, was relatively peaceful. Sure we had to fend off the occasional monster but they were never particularly hard to deal with. Living by herself, Blanc had grown used to dealing with the local monsters, so they posed little challenge to her. Meanwhile, as a CPU, if I couldn’t handle a few mook enemies then I would die of embarrassment before the monsters got the chance. Luckily the guild was indeed a thing in this dimension, even this far in the past, so I was able to get a job working for them. Unfortunately working your way up in the guild was significantly slower than was portrayed in the game. I was still confined to doing E-C rank missions even after many weeks of working for them and completing all the missions I had available.
    It only took a few minutes for me to make my way back to the house. It would have been far quicker to simply fly back, but I enjoyed the relative peace of walking through the woods.
Very quickly the trees opened out and allowed me a view of the snow dusted cottage. A few oddly shaped tracks dotted the garden, where a mob of some kind looked to have navigated across the lawn. Striding quickly to the door, a delightful wave of heat washed over me as I opened it. I could already feel the stiffness in my frame from the cold melting away.
    “I’m back!” I called as I entered the house, lightly knocking my shoes on the door frame to dislodge the traces of snow that still stuck to them. Blanc looked up from the book she had been reading on the couch and smiled back at me.
   “Have any trouble?”
   “No, it seems like the mobs hate the cold as much as we do.” I replied, hanging my coat up by the door and leaping onto the large cushion next to her. “Thank god for the invention of fireplaces,” I muttered as I practically melted into the cushion, wings spread out to act like a cosy blanket, and listened to the crackle of flames feet away from me.
    Blanc let out a pleasant laugh as she watched me.
    “Careful, relax anymore and you might melt into the cushion itself.”
    “Don’t care, so nice.” I mumbled into the fabric. With a groan of effort, I pushed myself over to lie on my back, skilfully maneuvering my wings so they didn’t get trapped in an awkward position. “Anything interesting happen while I was out?”
    Blanc thought for a second before indicating to the kitchen table with her head. “You got a letter from the guild. They want you to come in at some point in the next few days. Didn’t say why though.”
    I hummed in thought.
    “Maybe they finally found a lead on another monster disk?” I mused, folding my hands behind my head and letting my eyes wander up to stare at the ceiling. It was something I had enquired about all those many weeks ago when I had first signed up for the guild.
   “You’re still determined to investigate those things?” Blanc sounded concerned, and when I glanced over at her I could see her face twisted into a frown. She was probably worried that I would try something foolish along the lines of trying to remove my wings using a modified monster disk.
    A small smirk flashed over my face for a second as I snatched up one of the cute Dogoo plushies that dotted the house and lobbed it at her face playfully.
    “Lighten up will ya? I’m not an idiot, I’ll be careful!”
    Blanc gave off an adorable squeak as the pillow bounced off her head and glared at me with a bright red blush adjourning her face, her cheeks puffed out.
    “Hey! Careful with those, you could knock over my books!” she exclaimed indignantly. She let out huff and crossed her arms. “Anyway, any idea when you are going to head over?”
    I shrugged.
    “Not sure. No real reason to delay, so I could go later today if I feel up to it.” A thought flashed through my mind and I sat up. “Want to come with? It’ll do you some good to get out of the house”
    Blanc hesitated as an unsure expression appeared on her face. Her hands started to fiddle with the edges of the book she was holding.
   “Actually, I think I’m good here. I’ve gotten to a really good part of this story.” She nervously said, carefully avoiding eye contact.
   I looked at her and smiled wryly.
   “Is this because of the incident with Jane and the p-”
   “NO!” She yelled out with a blush before quickly recovering herself. “Ahem. I mean, no it isn’t. I just don’t feel like going right now.”
   “So if I waited a day would you be up to it?” I said, hiding a wicked smile.
   “Ah, er… I mean… yes,” her flustered tone quieted to a whisper, as her shoulders hung in defeat as she saw that she couldn’t keep making excuses. I leaned up, gently pulled the book from her hands before wrapping around her with my wings and swiftly tugging her onto the cushions with me. She let out a squawk as she fell in a pile on top of me. Forcing herself up on her elbows, Blanc and I stared at each other for a few second before we both started giggling happily.
    She collapsed back on to me and rested her chin on my collar bone.
    “I’m glad you started living here Valky,” she murmured. I smiled gently back at her, even as I ignored the small nagging voice telling me that I would soon have to leave her, and hugged my arms around her back.
   “Me too, Blanny.”

    In the end we decided to go early the next morning, allowing us to spend the afternoon in peace. Blanc had to dust off her travel clothes and disproportionately large axe in case we had to fight any monster on the way to the guild or in case the guild meeting lead to us having to fight anything. Valky silently thanked the gods (not the CPUs) for the ability to store equipment in digital pockets. It saved a hell of a lot of space and made getting ready so much faster.
    You would have been able to see the sun just rising had the sky not been cloudy by the time they set out to reach the guild. Valky had to rouse Blanc who had slept through her alarm. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she had quickly gotten her stuff, a small snack for the road, and then they set off. The guild building was near the centre of town so the walk to get there would take about two hours. For the last few weeks I had been eyeing a cool motorbikes in one of the stores they frequently passed. It was a cool green and blue colour, would cut down travel time a ton, and most importantly looked awesome. Sadly I lacked the spare funds to splurge on something like that and I didn’t even consider borrowing money from Blanc for something like this.
    Still though, as I once again walked past the bike I couldn’t help staring longingly at it and let out a very faint sigh. ‘It will be mine someday,’ I comforted myself. I would soon have enough money. I turned back to Blanc only to find her missing. A quick survey of the area showed that she had her face plastered to the window of a bookstore just a bit ahead of me. I walked up to tap her on the shoulder and she whipped around to look at me with excitement. I swear I could physically see the sparkles in her eyes.
    “It’s a new grimoire!” She squealed, dragging me close to the window and resumed staring at the book. I could just about make out the word ‘Humblemore’ on the edge of the book.
    “Falbus hasn’t released one of them in nearly a decade” She breathed, zipping into the store before I could even get a word out. I stood there bemused for a minute, looking at the gently swinging door.
    She slowly trudged out a small time later.
    “I don’t have any money on me…” She sounded so heart broken by this that I nearly couldn’t contain my laugh.
    “Come on Blanc. It’s not a limited time thing, we can come back later to get it,” Blanc visibly brighten and her back straightened. “Now, we should be getting to the guild.”
    After that we made good time at getting there. It was still early morning so there weren’t too many people out and about. I recognised a few people here and there, and gave them cursory nods as we passed. It wasn’t long before we reached the entrance of the large stone guild hall. For some reason they had really gone all out with the adventurer vibe so it was like walking into a fantasy novel. Magic crystals lit the wooden walls, overhung by a large stone decking that was the second floor. A notice board sat on the wall directly opposite the entrance so when you entered it was one of the first things you saw, upon which were a menagerie of requests and missions. A little birdy had told me that the head of this branch was something of a fantasy nut and had forced the constructors to build it like this. It was functional so no-one ended up objecting.
    Off to the side of the notice board were two receptionists standing ready to process requests or give out rewards. One of the two receptionists, a green haired girl in golden cloth, smiled as she noticed us and waved us over. The other receptionist, noticing the action, merely rolled his eyes and went back to being a faceless blob.
    “Valkyrie! Good to see you. And who's this with you?” she wiggled her eyebrows slightly. I levelled a dry look at her as Blanc blushed just off to the side.
    “Hey R-Cep. This is Blanc, because of various circumstance I ended up living with her.” I introduced. R-Cep was taken aback for a second before gaining a sly smile.
    “Ah, so this is the illusive Blanc.” Blanc nodded to her. R-Cep glanced to her sides before leaned forward conspiringly, so Blanc leaned forward as well. “I hear that Jane is still refusing to talk about the incident with the p-”
    “Anyway!” I hastily interrupted, pulling back Blanc who was looking mortified, “I got a letter from the guild master yesterday. They said they wanted me to come in for some reason?”
   R-Cep wiped her teasing expression off of her face and affected a professional atmosphere. She reached under her desk and brought out a small fold of notes that she started to leaf through. She found what she was looking for quickly and plucked a small group of papers out before laying them on the desk.
    “The guild master summoned you for a special quest. It is time for you to Rank up,” I noticed Blanc give a satisfied nod at that. “Given this is a promotion to B rank, the mission is slightly harder than standard B rank missions, just shy of A rank.” I nodded along as she explained all the details.
    “Your mission, should you choose to take it, is a search and destroy of a Boss level monster. In the ruins of Morboss there have been rumoured sightings of ghostly figures and fiery monsters. We want you to destroy them and clear out the dungeon.”
    “Alright, sounds simple enough. What’s the catch?” I asked.
    “The targets are suspected of being infected with Virus and are now equal to high C rank adventurers. Not only that, the mission itself is predicted to take several weeks, maybe even a month or two. You will need to prepare for a long journey.” Will the facts all said, C-Rep’s voice finally gained a bit of warmth again as she said, “Given your record with monsters, I don’t think this mission will be too much of a trouble.”
    I put my hand on my chin as I considered the mission. I felt like I was reasonably confident by this point to take on even A rank missions so the difficulty wasn’t a real issue. The main issue, I thought, glancing at Blanc, was how long I would be gone. Blanc obviously noticed my concern for she gave me an exasperated look.
    “I can look after myself ya know? I don’t need babied all the time.” I felt my cheeks burn at the comment. “Besides,” she smirked, “If you’re going so long, I’m coming with you.” Her smile suddenly froze on her face and she turned back to R-Cep.
    “It is ok if I come with her right? It won’t affect the ranking mission?”
    “Don’t worry, guild members are allowed up to a maximum of 2 companions to help them with their mission,” she reassured Blanc “So, are you going to take the mission?” she asked, turning back to me.
    “Yep.” A flame of excitement was lit inside me. These were the kind of missions I had always dreamed of doing when I was young. I just had never thought that I would actually get to go on one.
    “Then I would get going as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the more mob monsters you’ll have to battle. Also, the sooner you finish this mission, the sooner you have access to the more fun ones.”
    With a smile and a nod I started walking to the exit with Blanc trailing after, passing a small group of adventurers who looked to be just returning from a mission. As I reached the door I heard R-Cep call out one last time.
    “When you get back, you can take me out shopping! Your wardrobe needs a major update!” I just waved a hand over my shoulder as we left. Clothing shopping, which I had discovered could be fun, was still not something that I really cared for. Plus, I was happy with what I had, even if it was rather similar to adult Neptune’s style with knee length leggings.
    “Valky?” I paused as Blanc queried me, “don’t you need directions to the dungeon?”
    “...”
    I looked from Blanc to the closed door several times with a blank look on my face as I internally debated whether I should spend time looking for someone who would direct me or go back in and face the embarrassment of asking for the map.
    I went with the first option.
    Since the mission would be taking longer than I had even considered, we headed back to our house first to get supplies for such a lengthy trip. Blanc nearly emptied our fridge into her inventory while I went and fetched out camping gear from the basement. Once we had that all sorted we set off in the direction of Morboss.
    Morboss was located in the middle of a group of four mountains, at the lowest point between them. The mountains would take four days to get to, then taking the high pass over them to Morboss would take another three. Along the journey to Morboss we had a few run-ins with other mobs that happened to stray into our path. Most of them were dealt with easily enough, only one or two of them requiring any real effort to kill. Blanc got particularly annoyed with the winged mobs since they would always stay out of the range of her axe. That meant it was either up to me to take them out or for her to waste precious mana using spells to ground them.
     As we neared Morboss the terrain started to notably change. Dense forest and bracken gave way to rocky open plains and cold winds, which then gave way to cold snow and icy breath. The sounds of wildlife and birds slowly became less frequent until the only sound that echoed around us was the whistle of wind and the occasional distant crackle of ice and rock breaking. The last night they spent high in the mountains had both me and Blanc wrapped up in my wings for warmth. The tent we had brought had had it’s enchantments worn away over time and it couldn’t retain the heat as well as it used to be able to. I had been meaning to get that fixed sometime but it had slipped my mind before we left.
    After that night, it started to get warmer again as we travelled, but life did not return to our surroundings. Instead the air became stale and choked with ash, the ground started to show cracks within which veins of flowing lava could be seen. The snow gave way to hard rock and the few mobs we encountered prefered to use fire attribute attacks. The ash itself settled uncomfortably into my wings, meaning that I had to frequently clean them as we walked, each time leaving a small black pile on the floor under where I shook them.
    Just when we were considering camping out for the night, we finally spotted ruins further ahead. It was a kind of broken down castle, with what looked like half a tower in the centre. Along the walls we could both make out several robed individuals that were patrolling. I crept forward and beckoned Blanc to crouch down next to me behind a large boulder.
    “Ok,” I whispered, “I can count about nine lookouts up top. That means there is possibly a good dozen or so spread around the grounds as well. I’m not quite sure how strong they are so I was thinking we could lure out a straggler and try and engage it.”
    I peeked back over the rock to check on the situation as Blanc considered. Seems like that they hadn’t spotted us. We were probably outside their agro zone.
    “It’s not a bad plan, but where would we take the fight? The only place that would hide it from sight is the ruins itself and that leads to the issue of getting in without fighting.” she pointed out.
    “Ah.” I leaned my head back on the rocks and stared up at the sky as I thought. ‘She’s right, the only place we could carry out a fight in secret would be inside the caste itself. I could maybe fly us in, but that runs the risk of them spotting and surrounding us when we try and land. If we scale the walls near one of the towers, we could limit how many come at us at once, but we would still be going in almost completely blind. Actually, if I were to fly up and cause a distraction then maybe…’
    Coming to a decision, I outlined my plan to Blanc. I would cause a distraction on the southern edge of the walls, while I had their attention she would scale the east side. Additionally, while I was causing a distraction I would be able to get a basic view of the insides. Once I saw she was in position, I could circle back and meet up with her. What happens after that would depend on what we found behind the walls. After a little consideration, she agreed with the plan.
   She went left while I quietly slipped right. Once I felt a comfortable distance away, I leapt up into the sky and spread my wings wide. Already I could see some of the inside. As I suspected, there were multiple creatures milling around. As I approached I could see them in more detail. They looked to be wraiths of some kind. A few had swords, some had bows, and some walked empty handed.
    This close, they finally noticed me. It took one shout and a point in my direction for the fort to wake up like an ants nest. A good two dozen archers climbed up the towers and moved along the walls until they all faced me. A steady stream of arrows flowed towards me but because of the distances involved I had plenty of time to dodge. To respond, I threw down some small explosive packs that I had acquired for just such an occasions. The resulting concussive force threw half of them off of the wall and on to their allies down below. Those that stayed on picked themselves up and resumed firing at me. The closer distance was balanced out by the fewer number of archers so dodging them remained relatively simple for the next minutes or so. I occasionally dive bombed them and knocked them about, even killing a few, before retreating once again to a safe distance.
    When the first fireball barrelled past me and singed one of my wings, I knew it was time to get out of there. Mages were a different cup of tea to archers. I could see a group of three of them on the ground, casting magic in my direction. I fled in the other direction, flames licking at my heels. Once it seemed like they were leaving me alone I circled around the castle, making sure to keep my distance. This time before I approached I landed and dyed my wings in black before taking off low to the ground. The combination of stealth and the previous distraction meant I quickly reached Blanc unnoticed by the now vacant lookouts.
    Blanc gasped when as I silently landed next to her.
    “Valky! Your wings!” her hands immediately lit up with healing light but I waved them away before she could waste any mana on me.
    “It’s alright, it’s just ash. Now quickly, let’s get inside.” I gripped her by her waist and flew us onto the wall, landing as quietly as I could. It only took a few seconds for a guard to spot us and sound the cry, but by that point I was already dragging her into the tower on our left and slamming the door. Several thuds rumbled the door as I slid the heavy bolt lock into place and took a deep breath.
    “So what now?” Blanc asked, hefting out her 5 foot axe.
    “Now we set some traps up” I replied, starting to take some tools out of my bag. I froze as I heard a quiet snort from the other side of the room. We looked to where it came from but could see nothing in the dimly lit room. Then slowly fiery lines started to spread across an bulky form in the corner. The thing slowly got up and revealed itself to be a hellhound. Larger than both my and Blanc combined and radiating heat now. Beside it other lumps started to reveal themselves and pad towards us. Before I could even really process what was happening we were looking into the hateful eyes of a pack of Hellhounds.
    “Nice doggie, hehe,” I tried, “do you want a treat? Oh god your breath smells. Er, I mean look over there? Fetch? No? Didn’t think so.” We slowly backed up until our backs hit the door. I fumbled with my hand looking for the handle while maintaining eye contact with the lead beast. I knew that the second I looked away, they would pounce. I eventually found the lock and gripped hold of it tightly.
    “Blanc, on the count of three I’m going to open this door and we are getting the hell out of here,” I whispered. She nodded mutely. “One. Two… Three!”
    I twisted the lock and pushed backwards as hard as I could. The door hinge splinted and we fell backwards in a wave of cool air. I rolled into a crouch and summoned my sword, getting into a defensive position. I then blinked in confusion. We weren’t on the other side of the door like I thought we should be. We were in some kind of machine cooled warehouse looking place. It instantly clicked in my head.
    “About bloody time,” I muttered, but then I suddenly remembered the dogs we had retreated from. I spun around to look at where we had come from to see a shimmering, flowing field of energy. On the other side several pairs of flaming jaws snapped silently at the forcefield. It was strangely quiet inside, like we were disconnected from the outside world. Blanc came to stand beside me as we watched the hellhounds literally baying at our doors.
    “Valky?” Panted Blanc
    “Yeah?”
    “I don’t want a dog anymore.”
    “Me neither.”