Overpowered Wizard

Looking over to the side, Gilbert noticed the crumbled and scorched corpses of imps and demonic beasts around the staircase. The threshold and the stairs themselves were also heavily damaged.

Gilbert gave himself a few seconds to recover before pushing up to his hands and knees on top of Bianca’s head. He was about to jump down only to stop when he saw a horse-like form appear inside the staircase.

“Hey, Slip!” Gilbert greeted.

The eight-legged Sleipnir neighed in response as he clomped up to the top of the keep. Behind him, a large squad of flying ball-shaped golems buzzed and flitted about.

They twisted and turned toward anything that caught their attention. Most of them set up a perimeter on the keep, as if they were preparing the stage for the VIP.

Then Hannah walked up the staircase with a smirk on her face, her hard wizard hat tilted back. She even had a lock of her brown hair twirled on a gloved finger.

“You look happy,” Gilbert commented.

“SI!” Bianca bellowed.

Gilbert prepared himself before Hannah let out the nerd talk.

“I learned a lot studying the infernal runes from the portal obelisk. Of course, it tried to invade my mind and turn me into a demented shell of myself. But it lacked the ingenious power that my cursed item has.”

Hannah chuckled as she walked over to Bianca’s taloned foot and patted the angelic medium on the ankle. Then Hannah walked over to the edge of the keep and looked across the vast interdimensional plane.

“Things are going to be different after this,” Hannah said. “I can feel it.”

“I think that’s the sleep deprivation talking,” Gilbert drawled.

“Perhaps it is. But an event like this is going to propel us to new heights. I just … learned so much. Infernal runes are still runes, even if hellish. And Hidden Hell is a treasure trove of magical information, especially regarding dimensional magic or planar magic.”

Gilbert nodded along. Some of it interested him, and some of it didn’t. But letting Hannah have her full out nerd moments was the least he could do, especially when she could do stuff that barely anyone could.

Hannah carried on brightly. “With enough time, and maybe when I’m deep into being a Master Ranker, I can seriously consider making functional portals. It won’t lead us back home just yet. But it can connect us from location to location in the same world. It’ll be a start.”

“YAY!” Bianca cheered.

Gilbert felt a little dumbfounded by that. He actually understood the full implications.

To him, this horrid place was the incarnation of evil. There was nothing great he could get out of this other than growing his power and testing his faith.

To Hannah, it was a treasure trove of information she could use for her technological magic. Such magic might lead them to seeing their old home again and … well … maybe settling old debts or whatever.

For Bianca, it was another sign that the airheaded Latina was beyond talented and blessed. Even powerful devils could get wiped out by her in a second or two once she held a smidge of an advantage.

They were all walking away from this altered in one way or another. Though, for Gilbert, he felt the least amount of change.

He was still himself.

“Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but what about the portal?” Gilbert asked, bringing everyone back to the here and now.

“Oh, yeah, that. I stole a few crystals empowering the obelisk, and I set it to implode when it reached low energy levels. We have … hm … six minutes. Shall we get going?” Hannah asked.

“She’s been a pain, hasn’t she?” Gilbert asked down at the Sleipnir.

“Neigh,” Slip said with a horse-like drawl.

Nodding, Gilbert thanked the Sleipnir before dismissing him. He hopped down from Bianca’s head and landed in her many hands.

Hannah floated into the air because of her many array of abilities. Her two dozen golems circled around her and Bianca, escorting them as they flew directly back to the portal.

A few aerial hell creatures tried to attack. Hannah’s golems shot their green-tinted lasers and destroyed them.

Once the shimmering and roaring portal appeared before them, they passed straight through like the last time, but going back toward the more mortal realm.

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Gilbert still felt the heebeegeebees. He hated the strange dimensional shifts and the feel of Hidden Hell trying to get its evil grip on him.

At least he was in a slightly less evil place, such as the Grimrock Hell Gate instead of the inter-middle plane between the mortal realm and the hell realm. The place empowering the portal was one step away from fully entering hell, and Gilbert didn’t mind getting away from that.

They found the mile-long Dreadnought Hell Gator holding guard. They saw the ruins of the former temple – no doubt, that was Zarian’s work.

Gilbert could already feel the coming of a headache from just imagining the story Zarian had to tell.

They saw flashes of lights and heard intense eruptions between Naomi and Jack’s ongoing clash. They also saw the circling dark tide of lesser aberrations snapping up the remaining imps and demons that the hell gator didn’t bother to go after.

Then Bianca set her taloned feet next to where Zarian and Foodie sat. The two looked like peas in a pod as they chomped away at something that smelled freshly cooked. They also had a big black metal thing that looked vaguely like a sword leaning against a boulder next to them.

For some reason, that thing reminded Gilbert of something nerdy even he had a vague idea about. But what was it exactly?

Before he could recall, Gilbert tumbled out of Bianca’s many slender and long fingers as she dropped him without warning.

He rolled through the air and landed in a crouch before rising smoothly and inhaling deep with his nostrils.

The smell … was heavenly. It was extraordinary. It was something worthy of eating after two weeks straight of nonstop hell crawl.

“What is that?” Gilbert asked, mouth watering.

Zarian beamed with a big smile. “Imp limbs!”

Just like that, Gilbert lost his appetite. He watched his hedonistic heathens for friends as they delighted themselves on hellish flesh, as if that was okay.

Bianca munched away on small bites, making it hard to think of her as a medium of holiness. Hannah didn’t seem to care as she moaned with every bite.

The little goblin girl waddled over to Gilbert and looked up at him. She studied him with her big cat-like eyes, her big leafy ears waving up and down.

Then she asked in a scratchy but cute voice: “You sure you don’t want a piece?”

Gilbert reached into his satchel and pulled out a boxed meal. It was still warm. It didn’t taste as great as the smell that wafted off the cooked imps. But Gilbert stayed strong. He refrained, shaking his head.

Suddenly, Foodie burst into tears.

Zarian ran over and hugged her with his own pair of arms, and some extra arms sprouted from Para. She was in her cloak form, which wrapped the two up closer.

Gilbert had to do a double-take as Zarian said sweet nothings and treated Foodie like she was his … kid. Then Zarian glared at Gilbert from over his … child’s … shoulder.

The Knighted Healer stayed strong. He ate his lame box meal while everyone enjoyed the cooked imp and rained praises on the little goblin girl.

Even the damn hell gator let out a soft rumble in Foodie’s direction, as if to praise her and cheer her up. Everybody was making Gilbert feel like a jerk.

It’s hard being me sometimes, Gilbert thought.

“Hey Gilbert!” Zarian called.

“What?” Gilbert replied.

“Return my POV back to me, you jerk.”

“Wait, what?” Gilbert looked wide eyed at Zarian. When did he get the POV thing?

“No! I need to measure that!” Hannah looked at Gilbert like he was a lab experiment. Her golems turned toward him sharply, making many weird flashy lights.

Gilbert felt more afraid than when he was up against literal devils from hell.

***

“Too late, it’s mine again,” Zarian said, taking back the POV.

There was a strange moment where it felt like the center of focus was still in a transitory phase from Gilbert to him.

Zarian caught onto Gilbert’s last thought about being strapped down in a sterile lab while Hannah loomed over him with magitek equipment to dissect him. It didn’t feel like an impression on the spider network. For that moment, it almost felt like he was Gilbert.

But that quickly faded. His attention snapped back to the delicious meat his daughter had cooked for him and his friends, despite Gilbert being a jerk.

Granted, Zarian should probably reconsider if he should call Foodie his daughter or not. But the moment he’d taken a bite of the imp snack, his mouth was bursting with flavors and juices that nearly overwhelmed him.

He’d also felt his hunger change from being a wild behemoth to being a docile pet. Foodie’s cooking magic made it easy for Zarian to feel satisfied with only a few bites while having room for more.

So, it was plain to see that he’d fallen in love.

He couldn’t stop himself from doing that. Foodie’s cooking was just that amazing. All the growth and fighting and horrors leading up to this felt worth it.

So, yes, he’d adopted Foodie, at least in his head. He wasn’t sure how Foodie would react to being called his daughter after all she’d lost.

Zarian took another delicious bite of Foodie’s cooking. He glared over at Gilbert who ate by his lonesome self with his lonesome and unloved box meal made by those who weren’t as amazing as Zarian’s new unofficial daughter.

The stubborn Christian shook off his nervousness toward Hannah and matched Zarian’s glare with one of his own. Eventually, Zarian moved on.

Gilbert not taking part meant there was more for Zarian and Para. The cloak still had to eat a lot of meat, but Foodie’s magical cooking helped soften her hunger.

“DELICIOSO!” Bianca complimented.

She reached down with her long and slender fingers. She picked another slab of meat off the prepared platter between her claws. The meal disappeared in the lower part of the bright light covering her face.

“I’m a bit overwhelmed right now. Maybe a bit overstimulated and exhausted, but we need to figure out this POV Shift and … ohhhh, so delectable. So juicy. Oh, yes, I want more. Ohhh.” Hannah lost her train of thoughts again after taking more bites of the delicious snack.

“So, can we get back to business?” Gilbert grumbled, being the sourpuss. “Naomi’s still fighting Jack. We still have some bastards from hell running about and the aberrations, too. What happens with the Hell Gate and all of them when the portal shuts down?”

Before anyone could answer, the portal made a boisterous, bellowing sound.

Everyone, including the hell gator, turned around to look as the portal warbled, shook, and became flimsier and flimsier by the second. Then it collapsed in on itself violently.

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