DIE TRYING [A Roguelite Extraction LitRPG]

Wade pumped his fist up and down in silent triumph. He'd found it.

Mithril.

He had no idea why the crystal seemed powered by this chunk, since Selena had told him mithril acted like a black hole for mana so no mana should be leaking back out. But the Nathir were supposed to be some ancient civilization right? Tropes would say they had advanced tech secrets nobody figured out. Like how to extract mana out of mithril without melting it.

Leon examined the small disk while Wade took a small adrenaline fueled hobble around the short space. This was what he'd been after. Time to have it pay rent.

A spear zipped right by his eyes in between both of them.

"How many times do I have to tell you groundwalking troglodytes to-" She stopped midway, took one small glance at Wade, winced, then coughed. "Please inform Ser Leon I am once again asking that he cordially not involve himself with anything to do with you up close. If you would so kindly."

Wade stared at her in the pale LED phone light. "Is there some kind of taboo about swearing in your culture or something? You were cursing like a sailor before and now that you know I can speak elvish, you're constantly polite and posh. What's the deal?"

"I am not clear on what a sailor has to do with this, however vulgar speech is unladylike and beneath a moonwing paladin's station. You heard nothing, and especially nothing during the time before I learned you could speak elvish. Do we have an understanding?" The speartip looked extra sharp.

Wade thought about it for less than a second. "Okay, sure, consider it wiped from my mind." This many years in customer service has made him nearly immune to people's strange obsessions.

If she had a broom stuck up her hoity toity noble elf ass, that was her problem as far as Wade was concerned. Agreeing not to speak about it was a fairly good price to have her off his case and more friendly. "I'll let them know to avoid getting near me again. But I think we might have the blackrot problem solved."

The elf looked genuinely puzzled at this. "Do explain?"

"That disk there is mithril." Wade pointed at what Leon held. "Which means all these lights in this little city have mithril in them. I'm pretty sure if we salvage enough, we can cobble together some kind of collar. Enough to work, right?"

Selena gave the disk a more measured look. "I suspect you may be onto something. These appear large enough to affect the blackrot, however you should test your theory out first before celebrating. If it is indeed mithril, you will see immediate reaction from the blackrot if you place it close by."

"It wouldn't kill you to say 'good job' you know?"

She, in turn, pressed her lip into a flat line and her feathers started puffing up around her face. Tsundere. Wade thought, but kept the peace.

They both stared at each other, as if daring the other to start something.

Then her stomach growled right in the silence.

Before Wade could say a word, she snapped a finger at him. "You heard nothing."

"It's getting to be a lot of things I haven't heard with you miss-" Wade snapped back, to which he promptly stopped when the speartip was once more brought out.

"Did you run your mouth or somethin'?" Illy asked, watching as the elf seemed deadset on keeping her spear at his mouth at all times now. "What's got her all pissy again?"

"Uhhh…"

The growl came back from her stomach, this time loud enough for everyone else to hear. Selena couldn't hold eye contact with anyone after that, spear lifting away from it's threat, as she turned to stare at the wall instead.

"Ahh, no wonder she's being a right pain in the arse, she's empty as church during happy hour. Ask her when's the last time she ate?"

"Has she been fighting on empty stomach?" Leon asked, head popping out the side to check in. "Hangry?"

Selena didn't know english, but Wade had a feeling she knew exactly what the two had said. She finally turned from the wall, and glared at the three humans. "Inform them I am perfectly capable of combat. No moonwing paladin would be stopped by such a small thing as a missed meal."

Wade was familiar with days of skipping meals, but he'd done it out of pragmatic reasons, like the lack of top ramen in the pantry. Selena was a noble, and given how her armor seemed to fit her as if custom fitted, clearly has been well taken care of and looked expensive, he doubted she wasn't eating from lack of funds.

She could have done a healing spell that worked on speeding up the healing process by naturally sapping away calories or something. Come to consider it, in the dim LED light she did look rather sickly pale. Like she'd lost a lot of blood pale.

And said individual clearly noticed him checking her out. She took a step back, wrapping hands over her chestplate. "I do not appreciate leering."

Wade was too stunned to know how to answer, "Uh, that's the last thing I'm thinking of in this situation. Is your calf okay? You did get a pick right through the entire thing."

The elf bristled, then stood directly on her wounded leg. "My calf is perfectly functional human-Wade. There is no need to instigate any checkup on that." She even tapped the affected foot on the ground a few times, as if trying to prove she didn't feel any pain about it. "The wound was merely superficial. I've taken care of it myself and will not need any assistance." Now her voice had gone full on regal noble. "You should focus on your own business and test your mithril out."

Wade had a feeling she hadn't fixed it up at all. He saw her eyes flinch for a flickering instant on the final foottap. And her ears flicked in pain each time she tapped her foot down.

Despite Wade's thoughts, the spear lifted up and the russian tossed the little disk over with a mild smile. "I take it angry elf woman still being difficult?"

Wade caught the disk. "You guessed it. She did mention we should test the mithril theory out first with a practical exam and I agree with that part. Faster I stop this thing from getting to my neck, the better I'll sleep. We can figure out the care and feeding of noble elf paladins later."

He waved Illy over so she could shine the light more clearly on the disk. The group all took a closer look at it, keeping a respectable distance from Wade's arm, least a spear start tapping them to move it.

Illuminated over the centerpoint were etched circles that had that bismuth looking color to it, while the rest of the disk looked more like steel. Whole thing looked almost like a circuit board, except using hexagonal and circular shapes, which admittedly made it look a lot more magical than the standard Earth tech. "Yep, there it is. That's the mithril. Pretty sure it's covered by a layer of steel of some kind. Maybe to keep it safe?"

"Wade, you quick-thinking bastard." Illy grinned as she waved the light left and right over the disk, letting the metal reflect. "There's probably hundreds of these lights about in this zone, every unit has one. We could bungle up something with all this scrap right? There's laundry lines all over the place too, could cut a few down, wrap it around the disks and have something somewhat working."

When he brought it up to his arm, the result was immediate. He could see the black veins of the blackrot recede away from it, as if chased. That got a murmured 'ohhhh' from everyone as they saw the visual result. There was a clear area of about two to three inches around the metal where his skin turned from black and infected looking back to completely normal looking skin. "Oh thank fucking god it works." Wade said, lifting it up and down, each time watching as the black would move in or move out. The phone buzzed in Illy's hand, but Wade snarled at it without even checking the message. "I didn't mean you Play. It's a figure of speech."

"Well, least we know it's not mutating you, just makin' itself at home inside you. Guess that's a good thing." Illy said as she watched him hold the disk back near the infection side.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"How's that a good thing?" Wade asked.

"Means we can chase it out and leave you healthy." One of her dagger tips tapped his skin right by the mithril puck. Selena seemed comfortable with that at least. "I mean look at that, clean as a pub floor before the punters pile in. So there's a light at the end of all this."

Wade experimented with the mithril disk on different spots of his infected arm, watching the black veins scatter like roaches from light. Fascinating and disturbing at the same time. The infection seemed almost like magnetic dust being repelled away, through the shortest route.

Wade moved the mithril over the actual bite wound next... and instantly regretted it. The blackrot flew from the wound, sinking deeper into his arm, exposing the actual bite site without covering it in fuzzy darkness. It was mangled up flesh that immediately started bleeding. Pain instantly flooded his system, as if the blackrot had been masking that the whole time.

Went from a normal looking wound to an absolute bloodbath in seconds, almost gushing out. The arm also dropped limp at his side, as agony politely informed him it was a terrible idea to move that arm anytime.

The mithril chunk was promptly lifted away as fast as he could, leaving the place safe for the blackrot to recolonize. Which it did at the same speed it had vanished. "Ooof, okay, shit. I see what you mean about range of motion."

Pain was throttled like a misbehaving infant the moment the blackrot had recolonized it's old spot. Blood stopped pouring down his arm until only small red droplets were left. He felt full range of motion over it again, the arm working perfectly as if nothing had ever happened to it.

"Hard to believe that's all done by just a wee weasel," Illy said, looking it over.

"Trust me, it was way bigger than any weasel. Like two, three feet long." Wade lied as easily as he breathed. "And I stabbed it three times through."

"I believe it, looks more like you got on the wrong side of a rabid beast."

"It basically was. Magical rabies. Did I tell you how I stabbed it three times over with a dagger and it still kept trying to bite?"

That weasel had only one goal in life, and that savage beast had almost made it happen. Wade could feel his throat tighten at the thought. But now that fact did seem a little odd. Not to mention seeing its health tick up one percent while they both stared at each other. That was another point to consider. "Wait, Play, does it do more than just make things work again? Is it healing me?"

Like the moonwing told you, it's used by the terminally ill for a reason. Or soldiers going on a suicide mission, like you (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

"I'm going to strangle you the moment I find out how." Wade hissed.

Hey hey, that's not great customer service. Thought you were the polite retail worker (≖､≖╬)

"You don't survive retail without knowing what hills to die on. And strangling you is a goddamn good one. I'll make it through all this bullshit if only for that."

wowowow, now that's the spirit. Stay alive out there~ ♡(>ᴗ•)

He handed the phone off to Illy before he got too heated about it, then got to work testing the mithril. Each time he moved the puck across his skin, the blackrot found new paths, like water flowing around obstacles. But one thing he noticed was that the infection clearly wanted to go back to where it had been before, squirming around the perimeter of the metal chunk's aura. If he got it too close to the main wounds, pain would start to throb there.

"All right, I think just setting it up on my shoulder for now would work, until we get enough disks to make a full collar." He got up, opening the doorway back out into the cramped hallway. The group was behind him, moving in the darkness, until they reached the kitchen section of the living room. Like the other unit, there was some kind of laundry line leading out the window, probably where workers would let clothing air dry.

Illy grabbed one end of it, already unhooking it from the winch, and Selena moved in on the string with one perfectly regal swipe of her spear, cutting the string off the pulley. In a few moments, it was completely wrapped around Illy's hand, ready to be used.

As they learned, the twine didn't interfere with the disk's aura, so it was easy enough to wrap it up all around, leaving loops on the edges. The mithril capacitor already had four holes where screws would afix it down, so tying it to the twine wasn't a challenge. After that, the group went to work affixing the metal chunk on top of his shoulder, right between his neck and arm.

During the process, he got to ask Selena one last question that had been on his mind this whole time.

"How did your healing spell work? Did you just accelerate healing or does it restore things wholesale?"

The elf looked down at her leg without realizing it, eyes snapping back to him an instant later. "It converts mana into healing. I… admit I am not the most efficient spellcaster, however this amount of healing is perfectly within my capabilities."

"Could you at least show us how it looks? Illy's good with first aid, she was trying to help you the first time."

"I said I am fine human. There's hardly time to take off my greaves, anything could attack us at anytime."

That was a lie. Nothing had attacked them so far, and he was pretty sure there was nothing alive in this part of the city besides the giant golem. "All right… and food wise? You told me you were yanked out right while eating lunch earlier. Did you miss the meal?"

She held his gaze, "I had tea."

"Right, but I mean your lunch."

"I did have lunch, and I decided to drink some tea."

Her lips went into a flat line and Wade had no idea why this was a contentious topic in the first place. "….Are you on a diet or something?"

The speartip went back to aim at his mouth. Wade took the hint for what it was. "Okay, yep, you're right. I heard nothing. Fine, keep your secrets."

"Bloody hell Wade, what sort of nonsense are you spoutin' that's got her all fired up like that again and again?" Illy asked, giving Leon a quick head signal. The giant shrugged, and took a step closer to Wade's side, clearly ready to tap the spear out of position if things went sour.

Wade shook his head. "I'm innocent. I was just asking if she was on a diet."

Illy stared at him as if he was some oaf.

"It's a perfectly logical question to ask." Wade protested, "I thought maybe she was tired, or hurt, and that's why she's been so stuck up this whole time." Then he realized who's spear he'd just called stuck up. "Wait no, fuck."

The combination of voice tone, shifting eyes in her direction at that, and the immediate backpedaling seemed to tell it all. "You just spoke something highly rude about me, did you not?" The elf said, eyes narrowing down on him, feathers puffing up around her face.

"We're only discussing why you might have diet restrictions for."

"What I eat or do not eat is my business and mine alone. Cease."

What was making her so cagy about her food situation? He didn't buy her story about having just tea for lunch, and she was clearly lying to him already about the calf injury. He knew some stories had elves eat once a week or something ridiculous like that. Other stories had elves be vegetarians, but Selena didn't seem like the tree-hugging type of elf. And when he looked at her teeth, he could see she had tiny fangs too. Only carnivores had fangs.

Her spells had seemed more like a necromancer's spells, chaining spirits down from killed enemies. But she had said she was a paladin-in-training. What kind of paladin used necromantic magic and flew around on wings?

He had a feeling there wasn't an answer to that one anytime soon, but he did know there was something off about Selena and why she wasn't telling anyone what she ate. Or why she hadn't healed her calf up.

Maybe her diet was something more… unholy, and she knew telling the group here would cause problems.

They were in a fantasy world after all, just because she was a paladin didn't mean the goddess she worshipped was aligned with good. Dark paladins were a thing in some stories.

What other reason did Selena have to avoid all topics about food or her health after all?

What exactly did she really want?