“Quest Complete: You have chosen ten strangers, seemingly at random, and rescued them from certain death. Two men, one boy, and seven women are alive right now, because they were fortunate enough to come across your path. There are no truly selfless people; everyone has desires and goals that they pursue, but that doesn’t change the fact that you have chosen to help others, to achieve yours.

“Just like Arcana, you refuse to condemn others based on race, religion, gender, or culture. Thus, the First Goddess has decided to bestow upon you, the Guardian Class. Furthermore, you may choose between three pieces of equipment: Helmet, Chestplate, and Pauldrons.”

As Michael was casually bathing in the warm river-water, he finally received the notification that he had completed the Quest. He also realized that he could make the flying ball and giant sword that were floating above his body completely invisible.

After taking a few seconds to think about his decision, he swam up to the bank and as he exited the water, the space around his body suddenly started distorting. Once it was over, a glowing, thin, rubber-like armor had appeared on his chest and back.

Its appearance and the material that it was made out of was very similar to his weapons, so Michael wasn’t surprised when he read “Arcane Breastplate: Increases wearer’s Strength, Endurance, Vitality and Wisdom by two points; raises Defense Rating by ten. Each point of Aura reduces magic-damage taken by one. Soulbound to Michael and cannot be used by anyone else. Rare Quality, requires level-ten to equip.”

Then he received another notification: “You have gained Guardian’s Constitution Level 1: Increases the body’s natural Strength, Vitality and Endurance by one point. Aggro generation increases dramatically. Increasing healing taken from allies by 10%.”

He muttered “Hmmm~, my OP-ness is rising rapidly… I might need to masturbate soon.” Standing there, soaking wet and completely naked, Michael gazed around at the various new neighbors, who were building temporary shelters in his back-yard.

Aside from the rat-girl Thief, who disappeared somewhere, everyone else had stuck around. The three tiny Druid Gnomes, actually transformed into normal-sized, greenish-brown wolves; thus, they just dug a hole under the roots of a huge tree and claimed that as their territory.

Elina offered to let the two Lesser Angels stay in her room, but they declined and instead, picked one of the hollowed out caverns to the west. Sarah was staying fifty meters below them, so the cat-girl made sure to warn them beforehand.

Talia on the other hand, hastily agreed to living with the Priestess; she wasn’t an adventurer and certainly didn’t want to stay outside in such a dangerous jungle. Yuki and Alisa were actually close friends, so the two of them decided to build a rather large hut between the caves and the log-cabin: Obviously Tyler was staying there as well.

Michael didn’t technically complete the Quest, until after it became dark and everyone was settled into their new homes. As he looked around, he complained “I offered to teleport the bastards to an actual village or town somewhere, but they would rather stay here…”

Anyone who would stay in a place like the Temple of Asura willingly, was probably a wanted criminal in Carrabelle and the other borderlands. In Human territories, all other races were mostly treated like monsters, and the Angels would be treated as deserters if anyone found out that they were still alive.

The only person who had a home to return to, was Talia. However, she didn’t actually know where her own village was located; she lost her magical-map and her bow during the chaotic escape, so she was just planning on waiting for her father to eventually find her… which could take a few years: though she didn’t say that part out loud.

While Michael was looking up at the Moon and sighing dramatically at his complete lack of tiredness, a notification suddenly popped-up: “Inari has reached level eight.” However, before he had the chance to open her status-screen, the fox had already invested her own stat-points.

[Companion Information

Name: Inari
Titles: The Feeder, Chaos Hunter
Level: 8
Experience: 3/80
Age: Child
Race: Quad-Tailed Nature-Fox
Rank: E
Class: None
Specialization: None
Profession: Unemployed]

[Stats

Health: 40/40
Mana: 30/30
Stamina: 20/20
Mana Regen per minute: 30
Health Regen per hour: 40
Strength: 5
Vitality: 4
Endurance: 4
Dexterity: 1.5
Agility: 10
Intelligence: 6
Wisdom: 3
Perception: 5
Charisma: 2

Willpower: 3
Luck: 3
Aura: 7.3

Attack Rating: 15
Defense Rating: 2]

[Passives

Natural Immunity Level 1: Able to resist level two diseases, poisons, and curses.

Nature Affinity Level 2: Increased health and mana regeneration within jungles, forests, and sunny, warm, or moist environments. Increases damage against enemies of the Chaotic Affinity by 20%.

Aura of Nature Level 1: Devouring the mana-cores of Chaos Affinity will increase the Aura stat by 1% of the original owner’s level.]

[Spellbook

Intimidation Level 2: Instill fear into the target by releasing killing intent and using threatening language, infused with mana. Effectiveness is dependent on the Level difference between the caster and the target. Potency is dependent on the Charisma stat.

Entangle Level 2: Creates or manipulates thorny vines, which wrap around the enemy’s legs. Root duration is dependent on the Aura stat. Only works when in natural environments.

Devouring Vines Level 1: Creates and manipulates leech-like tendrils from the caster’s body and uses them to absorb the Health of the target. Damage per second is based on the Aura stat. Costs five mana per second. Twice as effective against Chaotic enemies.]

He snickered and muttered “Holy shit, she’s like a hundred miles away… Well, it looks like she’s headed back here though.” Inari had explored a decent amount of the jungle to the north and south of the waterfall, while hunting relatively weak enemies.

Michael Equipped the rest of his armor, then had a mildly disturbing idea: “Hmmm, if I had three more Angel corpses, I could probably turn them into pelts and then make some leather gear…” However, he immediately dismissed that thought, saying “Nah~, my skill level isn’t very high, so I would probably fuck it up and waste them. Besides, if I feed the two of them to Goliath, that’s like… a shit-ton of experience.”

Then he grumbled “Ugh, no, shit, why the hell doesn’t Willpower keep me from thinking about necrophilia? My penis is telling me to do terrible things… Well, it’s not like she’s using the body anymore, so it’s not rape, but it still seems kinda wrong for some reason?”

After entering his front door, he walked into the bathroom and then a spasming clump of golden meat appeared in his right hand. Staring at the angelic reproductive organ, he gagged and hesitated for an instant before sending it back where it came from.

He stared at the slimy yellow blood that was burning his palm and started laughing hysterically, as he said “Nope! My boner just got insta-killed.” It took a little more effort, but he was also able to shove the viscous liquid back into his thirteenth bag-slot.

The skin that had been burned by the acid was slowly healing, but the pain was still fairly excruciating. Michael sighed dramatically, before spending a level-eleven, rank-G mana-core and five-gold, on a Light Affinity toilet.

It looked similar to a porcelain chair with a large hole in the center, but there was no water and from what he could tell, it wasn’t hooked up to any plumbing. There wasn’t even a handle to flush it with, so he wanted to ‘test’ it out.

However, instead of urinating, he simply released a few ounces of his fifty-thousand gallon water-supply. Michael yelled “Holy fucking shit! Is this a toilet or a goddamn microwave!?” as the liquid began boiling at the bottom of the bowl, while glowing brightly and eventually disintegrating.

None of the vapor could escape and seemed to have been transformed directly into mana, which he was actually able to see with his relatively high Perception. Unfortunately, just because he had an ‘Arcane Body,’ the skill wasn’t quite at the level where he never had to defecate or urinate again.

In fact, it was excruciatingly unpleasant to let the waste fill his bowels and bladder, while waiting for it to slowly be destroyed. Thus, he was able to fully test the toilet’s functions, and learned that the seat was extremely comfortable.

He muttered “Hehe~, now what else do I need the most? Well, I probably won’t ‘need’ to sleep in the near future, but the kitty-cat could use a bed. A sink would be nice, but if I use a Light mana-core, will it just spray out loads of radiation? Hmmm, I should probably go farm some different Elements first, but before any of that… I need to evolve.”

When Elina had attempted to swallow the Lesser Angel mana-core, similar to what happened with Michael, a message appeared: “Humanoid Player-Companions must be at least level-ten before evolving to rank-E.”

Which meant that he didn’t have the luxury of using her as a guinea-pig, so he wasn’t sure what would happen. Yet, he had already made his decision the moment that he picked Arcane: Light was next on his list.