The Homeseeker: Elemental Adventurer LitRPG [Isekai] (Series Complete!)

"Fortunately for us, the journey between Oriton and Nightfall will mostly be along premade paths," Rep said as they left the city.

Pep pointed ahead of them. The ground was well-trodden, a slight discoloration and indentation of earth from several travelers having taken the road. Zalan wondered what other reasons people had to travel between Oriton and Nightfall.

"What does it mean if we're on premade paths?" Zalan asked.

"It means the journey is well-traveled. It is safer. We will likely be familiar with any monsters we see on our travels," Rep informed him.

"Oh, you mean like they'll be easy to fight off?"

"Generally, but we should still be on our guard."

Zalan looked out to the long path ahead of them, stretching to the forest on the horizon. He wasn't looking forward to traveling days without the immense speeds of the Belt of Bolt. He already felt like every day without Elemental Power was a day wasted. He was supposed to be increasing his abilities. His highest stat, Wisdom, was worthless without a power backing it up.

He should be able to summon lightning from the sky whenever he felt like it, but he was stuck with his sword and fists. Even after some battles proving his Strength stat was formidable, Zalan felt inadequate. And despite knowing his dependence probably wasn't healthy, he still sought the power he thought he needed. The realm felt unbearable without it. His heart felt like there was a void that could only be filled with the need for Elemental Power.

Morloch had taken that from him. He had never hated someone more than he hated Morloch. All the obsession that he once gave Slauson returned with a vengeance to Morloch. The burning, irrational, uncontrollable rage. He didn't just want to fight him. He wanted to kill him. To tear him apart. But he knew that as long as he was powerless, he wouldn't be able to take him down. It was part of the reason why he wanted an Elemental Power. In case he ever found himself running into the former mentor one more time.

Seeing Morloch alive at the Nature Elemental threw him off, mentally. He hadn't really expected to have another run-in with him. He thought Morloch would spend his days on the Island of Remains where he took powers from others. But what was so much worse was seeing people cheer for Morloch as he conducted evil. They had all been fooled like he was. Morloch hadn't faced any consequences of his actions. If anything, he was encouraged to do it again.

They walked for hours in silence, Zalan brewing on his desires to try and overpower Morloch. He wanted to ask Rep if he was also interested in killing him, but was afraid he wouldn't agree. He knew Rep would be able to make him think rationally and possibly talk him out of it, and he didn't want to be talked out of it. Morloch didn't deserve mercy. He let his thoughts fester. Rep would throw him a glance occasionally, but couldn't decipher what Zalan's odd facial expressions meant. He could only see something was off with his friend.

"Are you excited to get a new Elemental Power?" Rep asked, trying to lead Zalan's thoughts elsewhere.

Zalan shrugged the question off silently. Rep pursed his lips and dropped the subject.

Zalan felt darkness creeping into his heart. His life felt less worthwhile the past few days. Every setback had done immense damage on his psyche, just like Rep suggested to Madam Hikma. He just felt like he needed the missing piece of power to get back to normalcy. The scar on his wrist was a constant reminder of a piece of him missing. He didn't want to think about what would happen if he couldn't get Elemental Power anymore. And now there were two realities in which that could be the case. Morloch could kill too many Elementals, leaving the realm barren of power. Or his Elemental stat was permanently scrubbed away, preventing him from gaining another.

Rep stopped suddenly, lowering himself slowly in a kneel. Zalan followed his gaze and spotted some familiar monsters. Three traveling together not far from the path. They stood on two legs, held spears, hunted in packs, and had hard protective shells all over their body. They moved as a single unit, hunting. Shellbacks, Zalan recalled.

"If we stay low enough, we can get around them without them noticing," Rep whispered.

"Why?" Zalan asked. "We can take them and we could make the path safer for others."

Rep considered his point about making it safer. Zalan's real intentions were less altruistic. He felt the need to kill something at the moment. Morloch wasn't around, and the monsters were a decent excuse to let out his building frustrations. After a moment, Rep nodded, looking over the three creatures carefully.

"Very well, we can take them on. But be careful. Remember they move quickly. We should try to come at them from an angle that they would not suspect," Rep said.

"Yeah, sure," Zalan said flippantly, walking ahead.

Zalan pulled out his sword and waved it overhead, getting the monsters' attention.

"A sneak attack would have been much wiser," Rep grumbled.

Zalan ignored him, waving the sword even higher until the Shellbacks were drawn by the reflected sun on metal. They began to slowly approach with weapons prepared for battle. Zalan couldn't feel the drive to fight like he had against the Flamestriker and Thorncharger. He had none of the intensity pumping in his heart, nor the need to prove himself strong. The thoughts of Morloch put a sluggishness in his bones. No matter what he did, Morloch would still be out there, being praised despite what he had done to Zalan and others. But he still moved forward, determined to kill the monsters to get some catharsis.

The three Shellbacks split off to have more range with their spear attacks, creating a kind of semicircle around Rep and Zalan. Rep shifted his position carefully, eyeing which one would try to flank them first. Zalan kept his eyes on the monster in the center, not even paying attention to the others prepared to strike. They were a few steps away from being in attacking distance with Zalan's blade. Their spear could reach him before his sword could cover the gap.

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Without warning, the three monsters broke into a sprint. They charged with their spears out toward Zalan, somehow already having agreed to direct their energies on one target. Zalan didn't even give a glance to the two monsters on his side, brushing them from his mind. Instead, he dashed forward to challenge the one in the center.

"Zalan!" Rep screamed fearfully.

Zalan nimbly moved forward and dodged to the side of the Shellback's spear coming right for his chest. The idea crossed his mind to stomp down on the weapon and pin it, but for some reason that felt wrong to him. He didn't want to focus on using his feet against them like he had been taught. Instead he tried to cut the base of the spear in half with his sword, only for it to deflect off the shaft.

The spearhead was pointed away from Zalan now, but the monster wasn't bothered by its disrupted attack. The Shellback continued to race toward him and crashed into Zalan with formidable weight behind his movement. Zalan fell to his back and slashed at the Shellback's feet. He finally connected a blow and the turtle-like creature fell backward, slamming into the ground. Zalan scrambled to get up before the monster could. He knew the first to their feet would be the winner of the fight.

Zalan hopped to his feet in a second, bracing himself for the Shellback to retaliate. Instead, he was surprised to see the Shellback was defenseless on the ground. Lying on its back, it flailed around like a turtle that had been flipped over on its shell. It tried to scratch the ground to get leverage and roll itself around. Zalan charged in with teeth bared before it could recover. With a swift strike, Zalan decapitated the monster fiercely. He watched its head roll on the floor for a moment.

He thought a kill like this would make him feel better. Instead it felt even more like the void in his chest couldn't be filled. He considered that maybe he just needed to kill a few more monsters. He turned to address the two remaining Shellbacks.

Rep was standing above the two other Shellbacks, breathing hard. They were smoldering, freshly burned by his Elemental Fire. Zalan nodded to Rep, dissatisfied to see the monsters had already been defeated. Rep wiped sweat from his brow and watched Zalan with wide eyes.

"Should we check for Artifacts on the monsters?" Zalan asked, pointing to the nearest corpse.

"What was that?" Rep exploded.

Zalan turned his head to the side. He looked down at the dead monsters then back up to Rep in confusion.

"What was what?" he asked.

"You were wide open! I saw you didn't use any footwork when you had clear chances. You almost got stabbed in the back multiple times by these other two monsters! You would have been killed were it not for me risking myself to turn their attention away from you! I could barely procure the fire necessary to stop one, much less two," Rep said.

"Okay, thanks," Zalan shrugged flippantly.

"Thanks?" Rep repeated, flummoxed. "I am asking you to explain yourself, not thank me! Why did you wish to kill these creatures if you only intended to put in the minimal effort in doing so?"

"I don't know. Just drop it, we won all right? And we didn't even get hurt," Zalan grumbled, turning away from Rep's judgment. He perused the body of his kill and searched for Artifacts.

"I saw how stiff your legs were. Have you forgotten how to fight? You used to be the better fighter between us, both in Strength and in Elemental control. I know you are better than this! Nold trained us for days and you never put on a show that was this half hearted!" Rep continued.

"Except it wasn't Nold, was it?" Zalan snapped suddenly, twisting toward Rep. "Morloch was manipulating us the moment he met us, how do we know that he actually taught us how to fight?"

"Because of how far we got in the Elemental Rage Tournament without him. We were in the arena alone! We were up against people a higher Level than us and stood our ground in every single fight! We both know that we would not have stood nearly the same chance if he did not train us," Rep said.

"Yeah, well, all that training was just so he could get my power strong enough to suit him when he stole it from me," Zalan said bitterly.

"Be that as it may, you do not have to dismiss the good teachings of a bad man," Rep insisted. "I abhor him the same as you, but I know that I am stronger thanks to him. Or perhaps in spite of him. Your training has become the natural way in which you fight, to try and react differently than your nature is to hold yourself back. Do not hold yourself back against monsters, of all things."

"But how can I know what to tell between what was a manipulation tactic and what was a regular teaching?" Zalan said, running his hand through his hair and kicking the dead Shellback hard.

"I think everything he taught us in combat was good teachings," Rep admitted.

"Everything? No way. How could you know that?"

"Because if there is a single thing we know about Morloch, it is that he has an absurd ego. If his students joined the Elemental Rage Tournament and we were a laughingstock, he would not stand for it. And for all the questions we had about his methods, the results were clear. We could imbue ourselves, where others could not. It does not matter that he intended to kill us after all. There was no purpose to teach us things incorrectly only for him to kill us in the end. We would likely question him even more than we already did. And he hated how often we questioned him," Rep said.

Zalan crumbled under Rep's facts. He couldn't deny any of it. Morloch was impatient with them until they showed results. No one else could imbue themselves as well as Zalan could with his Elemental Lightning except for the finalist, Dimak, in the tournament. Morloch wouldn't stand for being questioned about things nor would he stand for being mocked for having lesser students. Zalan grounded his teeth in frustration.

"Yeah, well, I don't know," Zalan said. "Let's just keep going."

"I will not oppose continuing on the path, but I will not put us in contact with any other monsters if I can help it. You are not ready for any more fights," Rep said, his patience with Zalan having withered.

Zalan scoffed. He looked at Rep with a challenge in his eyes.

"You can't stop me from fighting what I want," Zalan said firmly.

"I can if I refuse to tell you how to get to Nightfall. Listen to me or you will not find your precious Elemental in the Depths of Despair," Rep warned.

"I can see the path as well as you can," Zalan said, presenting it with both hands.

"Are you certain that there are no forks in the road? Or perhaps we need to travel off the path for a short period? What if the path leads to a city, but it is the wrong one and you decide to begin your search in the wrong place?" Rep challenged.

Zalan said nothing, his eyes on the floor.

"I am your friend. I am trying to help you. We will avoid monsters," Rep said firmly.

Zalan scoffed again, but nodded curtly. He was feeling even worse than before. The act of killing wasn't as comforting as he thought it would be. In fact, it made him think of death even more than he had before the fighting. And now he had put a rift between himself and his closest friend. It was like he couldn't help but continuously sabotage his own life. He had the same question nagging at him that he couldn't keep ignoring.

Should he be alive right now? Was it worth it? Would death end the constant exhaustion, emotional stuntedness, and fatigue? He was trying not to consider it, but it was hard to ignore when he felt like everything he did recently was ending so poorly. He couldn't even kill a monster without messing up enough to upset his closest friend. It felt like there was a constant fuzziness in his brain, questioning his every move and wondering just how miserable he would make himself.

Without a word, Rep continued to lead the way further down the path to the city of Nightfall. Zalan followed, his feet dragging along. He had little hope that things would get better.