Chapter 233: Diaper
Zarek’s eyes shot open, and he was immediately on high alert.
Since he left the cave, he hadn’t bothered to use the tent again. That was just asking for problems, and he much preferred to sleep in the open air like this.
Contrary to what less experienced people might feel, sleeping exactly like this was probably safer. Surrounding himself in bundled defenses and dense Godsfall was like putting up a flag and yelling to all the surrounding Turned that he was here.
If he had a partner, it might be worthwhile, but he didn’t, and that made things more troublesome in their own right.
His eyes narrowed for a moment, but there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger.
Hopping to his feet, he began his steady jog again.
By now, he had left the dense forests and green plains. The weather was becoming a hint chillier and more rocky. The good news was that with his current Endurance, this cooler weather was probably better for his chances of maintaining a decent body temperature and keeping his body in top condition.
The bad news was that the elevation sloped and rose much more often now, and there was also less to hide behind. Trees were becoming more spaced apart, water was more difficult to find, and because Zarek had a habit of trying to live off the land when he could instead of using up the resources he had on hand—of which Thalion had left him quite a lot—he had been living off of Turned carcasses for a long while now.
Still, Urouge was persistent, yet patient. There would always be two or three attacks an hour, always in conjunction with another Turned attacking him.
At first, they had just been assaults on his Ashen Souls, snatching one or even two of them away before he could stock up. But then they became more complex.
Sometimes Urouge coordinated with the Turned, amplifying their attacks or making it more difficult for Zarek to dodge or counter. Sometimes the anticipation of Urouge’s action alone was enough to make a battle Zarek could have ended in short order drag out. Sometimes, he would even feel a debuff hit him, his limbs becoming a bit languid in their movement while his reactions slowed to a crawl.
The more Urouge messed with him, the better sort of feel he got for the way Zarek thought and acted. The battles, despite the Turned not becoming substantially more difficult to deal with, became harder and harder nonetheless.
But Zarek was also learning quite a bit about Urouge. The most important of which being the fact that... the man didn’t seem to care about the direction he was heading in at all.
Over the last week, Zarek had tested it quite a few times, trying to see if he just happened to be going where Urouge wanted him to go, or if Urouge truly didn’t care.
He concluded that the man well and truly didn’t care.
But that was odd.
The more time he spent just tailing Zarek like this, the more difficult it would be for him to lay claim to the badge all on his own. That was obviously what he was after, otherwise he wouldn’t have come to find "Thalion" in the first place.
Of course, that much was speculation on Zarek’s part, but he was still pretty confident in the conclusion.
So why was it that Urouge would not care about where Zarek was going, even if it meant that someone else might stumble upon him first?
The conclusion was just as obvious, then. Urouge wanted someone else to find him.
If Urouge could monitor and follow Zarek from afar so easily, then he could likely do it for others.
If Zarek was Urouge, he would cast a wide net around where Zarek was, monitoring all Turned and participant activity. If someone he didn’t want to find Zarek first did, then he would either work to deter them or deter Zarek.
In all likelihood, he had been following Zarek for long enough to know that deterring Zarek’s path was nigh impossible. Which meant that he would almost certainly choose to deter the path of whoever came instead, away from Zarek.
This was all to say that Urouge was waiting... waiting for the right person to run into Zarek, a person both strong enough to actually pin Zarek down, but weak enough that he was confident he could deal with them.
So, Zarek too remained patient. And that day, as he crossed into colder and rockier territories, he finally saw who it was Urouge was aiming for.
The first thing he saw was the enormous great sword. Larger than even her body, it stood out over her back, its handle looking more like a flagpole than a weapon wielded by such a petite woman.
Her presence was so fiery even Zarek almost felt that she was alone for a moment until he spotted the two following her from a distance. The big-bellied one was a man that he immediately recognized, which probably meant that the archer there was the very same one that had been facing off against him from the shadows.
Zarek took deep breaths, standing tall from his previous battle as waves of sweat poured down his body. But his muscles were akin to revved engines.
As though he knew no fatigue, there was no despair in his eyes as this new battle came, but instead a calmness.
It seemed that it was about time he see what these Demons were really about.
Eliz came to a stop 300 meters away, her gaze firmly planted on Zarek. She scanned him head to toe, making out his fatigue with a furrowed brow.
She felt like something was off.
"I smell something rotten in the air. Do you think yourself very clever, Urouge? If you wanted to play assassin in the dark, maybe make sure that you don’t smell like your old bitch of a mom’s diaper."