FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Authers note - phew just got this one done before going back into my work week, hit a bit of a snag trying to sort out how the 'rpg' system would work for me and fit into the story. No bed action yet though sorry guys :P there will be some in the next chapter, promise ^.^

Rise Of The Maou

Chapter

004

Onceagain Kael found his eyes creaking open to the view of a familiar hut roof, this time though his body was in considerably more pain then last time causing him to awaken with a groan. As his eyes adjusted to the light he noticed the outline of a feminine figure seated next to him and then felt the gentle brush of a hand caressing through his hair tenderly "mmph... Morning Sheila..." The hand quickly stopped its petting at his words "m...morning Kael... though its late afternoon actually."

Kael gave a light winced grin "I hope you don't think I'm normally so lazy that I sleep in like this then." This got a soft giggle from her "Is the village ok?" The deer's delicate fingers regained there resolve and resumed there tender cress through his hair, such a simple touch he found was very calming and relaxing.

She spoke sorrowfully now "We lost half a dozen of the guards but the rest of the villagers are fine."

Kael was torn between emotions, he was glad that the village was safe but he felt he had let them down with the losses they suffered "I'm sorry... if only I was stronger..." He felt his hand clasped gently by Sheilas then.

"Don't be sorry Kael, if it wasn't for you this while village would be gone, were all so thankful." As she spoke he was glued the whole time to her deep brown eyes, drawn into them "And.. I'm so thankful that your still alive." Slowly she leaned over the bed to him till he could feel her warm breath flowing over his face lightly, her lips closing in on his own but stopping barely a centimetre from him as though hesitant, but he closed the gap himself, squeezing her hand lightly as he pressed up to touch his lips to hers. This was all it took for her to lose her hesitation and press into the kiss passionately, hand cupping his cheek lightly as he moved his own to cress the back of her head gently, their eyes closing as they lost themselves into the kiss that they both felt had been avoided for too long already.

A cough from the entrance caused the kiss to separate quickly though as Sheila stood up straight like a bolt and turned around to see the elder staring at them with an amused grin "Sorry to interrupt, I was hoping I would find Kael awake. Seems he's doing fine hmm?"

"Uh..ah... yes! He just woke up a few minutes ago grandfather...u..umm.... I'll go fetch some food and drink." She nods and quickly dashes out of the hut in a fluster leaving the elder to stand there and chuckle.

"Ah youth..." He grins at Kael who only looks away like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar giving the old stag another laugh "Don't worry boy, It wasn't hard to already see the feelings between you two" he smiles softly and steps over to the chair beside Kael's bed, taking a seat "Which makes what I'm going to say harder truth be told." He lets out a sigh "Firstly, this has nothing to do with you or your actions, so don't feel responsible for this." He offers a reassuring smile before continuing "The entire village will be packing up and moving further into the forest in a few days, though myself and a few others will remain here till your healed... but after that we will have to go our separate ways."

Kael's heart sank he'd just found people he thought he might actually be able to build a life with without being handed the short end of the stick every other day "Why?"

The old stag smiles softly "It's simply how we continue to survive, now that our village has been discovered more will come, even though none escaped from the attack there's still the chance there may have been another scout hiding in the trees, or once the adventures don't return the humans may send more people to look for them." Kael frowned but he understood the reasoning behind it, nodding to the stags words but there was still one more question lingering in his gaze which the old stag could see "As for my other words... while you've certainly saved this entire village.. I regret to say there are still many that do not trust you or that are simply too scared to let you come with us, I may be the elder of my people but I'm still just one old man, I can't do anything that may cause trouble for my people, do you understand?" Kael nodded slowly "Yes sir..." The old stag gave him a light pat on the shoulder "Don't worry too much, I have a pretty good sense about things like this and I get a strong feeling we'll meet again one day after this." He grins then "After all, you're the boy that's won the heart and soul of my granddaughter." He lets out a chuckle as he stands up and heads to the door "Sheila you can stop hiding by the door now." This causes a startled sheila to let out a small cry and chase about the fruits that fell from her basket "I'll be leaving his recovery in your hands." He smiles to her as he passes and heads out to start arranging the plans to move.

Sheila stood at the doorway with the fruit basket in hand, staring in quietly as Kael lay bed ridden, staring back at her with a warm smile "Coming in?" She jumps a little at this but then blushes and steps forward hurriedly to take a seat at his side "So you heard all that then?"

"mmm." Sheila gave a light nod as she set the basket down and picked up an apple, taking a knife and started to peel it for him "I knew it would happen, we simply can't afford to stay in a place once it's been discovered even once, to be honest it's rare that we've been here for as long as we have already."

Kael lets out a sigh as he relaxes back into the soft moss bed and stares up at the ceiling of the hut "So what happens to us then?" His eyes glancing back to Sheila as he asks this to see her looking down at the apple sadly.

"Once we leave... I will simply wait for you." She looks back up at him finally with a soft smile "You read about it in the library right? How our pairings work?"

Kael looked back up at the ceiling as he brought the writings in question back to mind "mm... just about all races except for a few, when a man and women become bonded it's for life, they will never love another unless there mate dies and even then moving onto another partner is rare...but... humans don't work that way, some humans even pair up with different people every day..." He looks to her to find her smiling at him softly

"I know, it's not unheard of for males of the other races to take multiple partners... so even if it takes years before I see you again.. and you take other bonded mates, if you'll accept me as one then I will gladly wait till you come back and find me once again.. that is.. if you want me..." She blushes and fidgets now, hands dropping the apple and knife back in the basket as Kael reached over and took her hand, pulling her over to him, inviting her to his lips once more but as she approached Sheila accidentally placed her hand on Kael's chest causing him to wince and groan "Ack!" Sheila drew back quickly at this "I'm sorry! Are you ok?... Kael!?" She leaned over more carefully this time to stare into his face and see if he was ok, as she did a hand came to rest on the back of her head and pull her into a deep loving kiss "Ka.. mmphhmlll." Startled at first but she quickly fell into the kiss, lips parting to let their tongues slip out and dance around one another. As the kiss slowly parted their eyes opened to stare deeply into one another's gaze, Kael's hand lightly caressing Sheila's cheek to which she nuzzled into his touch, a sudden growling from Kael's stomach though caused them both to blink and chuckle.

Sitting back into her seat Sheila picked up the fruit basket once more and resumed peeling the apple she had been working on "Guess that's as much as we can do for now..." she blushes softly at her own words as she cuts a slice of the apply and reaches over to press it to Kael's lips who gobbles it down happily.

A few more peaceful days would pass before Kael recalled what he'd seen before passing out at the fight, looking to the small table beside his bed where Dee sat watching him quietly "Hey buddy." He smiles to the little black slime who lets out a happy squeak in reply and bounces down onto the bed beside him, Kael scooping him up on his hand and brings him up closer to face him, bringing his other hand up to rub over his head in a petting fashion "I made you do some bad things the other day.. I'm sorry." Dee just let out a happy chirp and nuzzled up into the petting "You really saved me there though, I'd be dead if it wasn't for you." Dee then smiles at him and hops down to her shoulder to nuzzle up against his neck almost like a little kitten "Hehe." He smiles at the affection the little slime shows him "I want to ask you something though Dee." Dee perks up at that, hopping back into his hand to look at Kael with a curious gaze. "Before I passed out just after you saved me, you showed me a strange... screen? With something written on it, what was that?" Dee seemed to think for a moment but then nodded and shifted into that tablet like touch pad, the screen he saw those few days ago was still on display in bold white lettering in contrast to the black background that Dee's body provided for the screen.

LEVEL UP!!

"Ok.... It wasn't my imagination then... what's this about Dee?" Reaching out curiously he touches the screen causing the text to vanish and in its place what could only be called a status window appears. Down left side of the screen was his name, age, gender and what was under that shouldn't have surprised him after everything that had happened so far, but there down a bit further was the word 'Class' and what was written beside it is what really surprised him.

[Unrestricted]

"Unrestricted class?.... does that mean I can be anything? Wait wait, does this mean this entire world is actually a game?.. it can't be though it's to real..." he scratches his head as he tries to work out this puzzle, Sheila just arriving in time to see his flustered state.

"Kael? What's wrong?" He steps over and takes her usual seat beside him, that soft calming smile on her lips.

"ah.. Sheila." He returns a smile to her fondly before looking back to Dee "Hey Sheila, do you know what Dee is?" She tilts her head curiously as though he'd asked something strange.

"Of course, he's your morph right? That's why there's still quite a few that are nervous about you since you're a true adventurer." Kael just looks at her dumbly, having no idea what she's talking about which makes her tilt her head curiously "He is yours right?"

Kael just shrugs "Don't know, I guess so? I've never even heard of a morph before, before I rescued you I simply woke up in the glade in the forest and this little guy was bounce around, when I heard you scream I just kinda stuffed him into my pocket on reflex and went to help you, after that he doesn't seem to want to leave my side." He rubs his hand along the top of the tablet causing it to shift back into the little slime who giggles at his touch. "The truth is Sheila... I don't think I'm from this world, where I'm from the only sentient race is humans there are no other types, no monsters, no demons, no evolved animal races, just humans.. the one thing I wish I wasn't born as..." he gets cut off as Sheila leans over and gives him a gentle hug.

"I knew it, I could tell there was something special about you Kael, something that made you different from normal humans." She smiles brightly at him, he can't help but smile back.

"T..Thanks... but... I don't think there's much difference between the humans of this world and mine... they are a cruel and destructive race." He sighs and shakes his head "I'm getting off track... about Dee, I don't recall reading anything about morphs in the library but you speak like it's common knowledge can you tell me about it?"

Sheila smiles and settles back into her chair "Of course, first of all the reason there wasn't anything in the library is because we simply don't have need of that knowledge, the monster races don't need morphs... or rather no one really needs a morph to really increase their skills, they are a gift from god onto the 'brave' adventures that travel the world to rid it of... us." She frowns lightly at this and Kael blinks

"Wait wait! You mean everyone thinks I'm some kind of monster hunter!?" To this Sheila nods

"More or less yes."

Kael frowns "I would never... I would never hurt people that have been so kind to me, kinder then my own race has ever been."

Shelia smiles softly and takes hold of his hand "I know Kael." She rubs his hand idly as she continues "These morphs are a kind of.. link between the adventurer and god, from what I understand through it you can see all the skills and abilities you've trained and by accomplishing special tasks for god you'll be rewarded with points that you can use to increase your abilities even further, only those with a morph can increase abilities in this way, normal adventures like the ones you took on could only gain their strength through normal training and practice. There's not much else I know about it I'm afraid though, like I said our kind don't have much use for it, since it's a gift from god and... well god is obviously against us so we simply don't get morphs..."

Kael's head tilts curiously "If that's the case then why did Dee come to me? Surely this god would have known what kind of person I am?" As he spoke though something came to mind "Wait... in the library some of the scrolls mentioned there being two gods, one created humans and the other created the monster races... what if it wasn't the god that created humans that gave Dee to me but the other?..." Kael looked to Dee curiously who just gave his usual smile "Piku!" Kael smiles and tickles the little slime with a grin cause it to roll around in a fit of giggles "Why me though? Surely there are other people in the monster races that would make better use of a morph."

Sheila chuckles softly "Ah, I never said that we didn't have a link to our god though, we have our magic, humans cant directly use magic you see so their god gave them the morphs, though some can still cast magic by using special focus items, rare stones, wands and staffs and the like, but we can use it naturally." To give an example Sheila gave a light delicate weaving motion with her hands and nearby a pair of leaves grew from the side of the hut wall and peeled off it to then flutter around the room as though it was a butterfly before flying out the window and being caught by the wind. "That's about all I can do with my power but with training and practice I could get a lot stronger, humans though are limited to simply what there items are capable of casting." With that Sheila let out a light yawn "Mmmm, and that's about all I know really, I think you'll just have to talk with Dee and get him to show you the rest."

Kael scratched his chin lightly "Ah, one more thing though, what about his ability to shift into weapons?" Sheila blinked

"mmmm... I can't say I've heard of it before, It could be a rare ability for a morph." As she said this she was sliding onto the bed next to Kael with a smile, gently snuggling up next him while being mindful of his still injured body.

"Wha?.." Kael was caught off guard by her bold move but was silence when she pressed a finger to his lips then closed in and planted a kiss to them instead, arms draping over him lightly as she cuddled close to share his warmth and soon they both fell asleep in a gentle embrace.

After nearly two weeks Kael was up and walking about the village once more, or at least what was left of it, nearly all the villagers save a few guards and handful of villagers that wished to see Kael off were still remaining, during his time bed ridden he'd examined Dee's abilities more closely and found quite a few interesting things, he first had another look at the status screen, his information written down the left side as well as his class and level, under it was his G.P he guessed this to mean 'God Points' basically he figured it to be the same as exp in a computer game, since the morphs were a gift from the gods it simply went by a different name, on the right side of the status screen was his base attributes, your standard things such as strength, agility, intelligence, endurance and even luck, to his surprise it seems that his level up actually took him from level 0 to level 1 instead of starting at level 1 and the amount of G.P he needed to reach that was a substantial amount which he was able to learn after closing the status screen to find a large list of page selections on the menu page, the vast majority of these were dulled out with question marks covering them, leaving them for the time being unusable. But the ones he was able to use were as follows.

[Status] [Skills] [Inventory] [Compendium] [Achievements] [Morph] [Level up] [I.D]

Though that wasn't even half the buttons on the screen, he figured the rest needed to be unlocked by meeting some kind of requirements set by the god. He was hesitant about pressing the level up button and left it alone for the time being till he learned more about how it all worked and decided to start with the [Morph] screen, this brought up mini profile of Dee stating his new name given by Kael, his age which was only a few weeks now, and what was really surprising was that it seems there were different ranks of morphs, Dee's rank burned into his eyes in dark purple lettering [Legendary] he wouldn't have really cared what rank Dee was in truth, but being of the likely highest rank made him swell with glee, it turned out the Dee also had his own level which would grow as Kael used him more, it made him wonder if Dee could gain abilities as well, or perhaps it would unlock the other options on the menu, he would have to wait and see. On the right side of the screen was what seemed to be a list of the shapes Dee was able to currently take on, or rather what he'd learned to change into along with light descriptions of the change so far there was only three, the walking stick he'd become when Kael was first injured, and the sword and spear. Above the list was what looked like the number of shapes Dee could currently be taught to change into, it sat currently at [3/6] as an experiment he tried to see if he could remove the walking stick from the list but found himself unable to do so, he couldn't be hasty in picking the last three forms, but if he was lucky that upper limit might increase with Dee's level he hoped.

The [Achievements] screen was rather interesting, it appeared to be a log of everything he'd done that had gained him G.P this was what allowed him to find out that he required a large amount of G.P to reach his first level and it turned out he'd gained G.P from a lot more than just the battle at the village, knocking out the humans in the forest, rescuing Sheila, befriending the village, even reading all the scrolls in the library had gotten him substantial amounts of G.P this also helped to prove his idea about Dee being given to him by the monsters creator, the humans god who supposedly hated the other races would undoubtedly give him nothing for these kinds of actions. Something else that caught his attention on the list though was that between several of the G.P gains were the words [New Skill Gained] this brought him to take a look at the [Skills] Screen.

The skills screen was a rather simple but almost empty page, it had two columns labelled. [Active] and [Passive]

In the active list there seemed to be nothing at all which didn't surprise him, but in the passive side there were several things listed

[Pain Resistance]

[Damage Resistance]

[Plant Manipulation (Theory)]

[Basic Sword Handling]

[Basic Spear Handling]

[Basic Club Handling]

[Perfect Memory]

Most of the passive skills he could already guess how he'd gotten them, the weapons obviously from the brief time he'd used the walking stick, sword and spear, the pain and damage resistance would have been from when he was attacked by the heavy armored adventurer and the perfect memory was his natural born ability, when he pressed one it turned out that each skill had its own level and ranking, the more it leveled the better he would become with that skill, but what he was most interested in was the plant manipulation, pressing it brought up a brief description.

[Plant Manipulation (Theory)]

By memorizing the Deer folk's scrolls of plant manipulation you have unlocked the path to being the first human to learn true magic without need of a focus, but further understanding and practical training is required still.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts as he looked about the almost deserted village he was now on his way to make one last request to the village elder, finding the old stag as he was seeing off the last few villagers at the gates "Ah, Kael, good to see you up and about." His smile saddens "It seems it will only be a few days till we all depart."

Kael nodded lightly to his words "So it seems... elder? I have one last request I would make of you... though I would understand if you refuse..." The old stag just smiles at him.

"Speak your mind then Kael, what can this old man do for you?"

Kael swallowed heavily before answering him...

"Teach me magic.."