Chapter 6: Force
"Welcome, oh mighty dragon lord."
The monster slowly flew toward them, his immense body casting a shadow over everyone present.
"We are honored you have chosen to visit us in this humble city whose creation you allowed. Please, accept this gift as a token of our everlasting gratitude to your immense self."
The dragon landed in the middle of the square while barely paying any attention to the man repeating his ritual greeting for the umpteenth time. Without even waiting for him to finish his speech, the dragon launched himself at the large pile prepared in front of him and swallowed staggering quantities of food with every bite.
The people surrounding him silently watched the fire-breather quickly devour the small mountain that could have fed them all for months, while the governor continued to thank him for his generosity.
Meanwhile, inside a dark room currently supposed to be empty from which was possible to see the scene, two figures were looking at the fire-breathing monster outside the window with unparalleled attention.
One was wearing a cloak so dark it seemed to be made of pure blackness. A featureless white mask concealed his face, while a silver crown with a dark gem mounted in it adorned the top. The other was wearing tight black clothes, maximizing mobility while blending in the surroundings. His mask was dark, tapered at the bottom so that it resembled a stylized long beak. Below his hood it was possible to glimpse short gray hairs and milk-white skin.
They both appeared to be humans, but it was quite far from the truth.
Without taking his eyes away from the dragon, the one wrapped in the cloak of darkness addressed the other.
"What do you think?"
He kept looking at the deer-like creature, searching for meaningful information. After taking some seconds to order his thoughts, he answered with the most accurate analysis he was capable of.
"Lord Raal, the target is currently the greatest known threat we have encountered. He is able to best any inhabitant of the castle in single combat with strength alone and we are not yet certain of the full extent of his powers."
His lord didn't react to those words. He wasn't the first that question had been asked to, his answer must had been too similar to the other's. Understanding what he just said to be barely a step above from stating the obvious, he decided to continue with a more extensive analysis.
"The territory he inhabits is sufficiently large to contain a considerable number of cities which are visited following an established pattern in order to acquire nourishment with minimal effort. Combining this methodical behavior to our collective remote reconnaissance capabilities as well as your crown's power, we can determine and predict his location at any moment. It would be possible to overwhelm him with numbers by fielding a large amount of combat capable vassals in a strategic location."
Once more, lord Raal kept observing the dragon lord in silence. What expression was below his mask, even he couldn't tell.
After a few moments had passed, his lord shared his opinion with him.
"I am against such approach."
The one he served analyzed his suggestion with ice-cold logic.
"Our opponent can use techniques and abilities so different from each other that we might be right in assuming he is capable of adopting most strategies with high efficiency. If we were to field waves of combatants and he was capable of enhanced wide area attacks at even half his barrier's strength, we would sustain great losses without achieving tangible results. Any standard approach is a risk not worth taking, regardless of the magnitude it is implemented at. If we are to eliminate our target, we have to do so with a strategy specificity designed around his weaknesses."
Overwhelming someone with superior numbers was standard procedure when against stronger opponents, but if the disparity in strength were too big then it would just result in a one-sided slaughter. Both magic and physical attacks are useless when facing incredibly superior adversaries, so they could only employ vassals at level eighty and above.
Assuming they could all be moved out of the guild-base without consequences, the disparity in strength was still a huge obstacle. It was very likely that their numbers would have little impact once the dragon begun to slay several opponents with each attack, leaving only the highest leveled to fight in the end.
And even if everything went well and the dragon was defeated, after the battle they would have to resurrect the deceased vassals and summon enough servants to replenish their numbers. There was no point in a victory if one had to cripple himself to obtain it.
After understanding what his lord was taking into consideration, he proposed a less direct approach.
"An alternative not reliant on combat would be to exploit the tributes he takes from humans. Adding doses of poison in the meals we are certain he will consume, we could eliminate him without incurring any direct danger."
Lord Raal kept observing the dragon feeding outside the window. Of all the kings they served before coming to the new world, he was definitely among the most feared. No one had ever seen his face, he moved in the castle completely unnoticed and spent most of his time in solitude.
When he had been summoned to be a part of the espionage squad and operate in hostile territory under his orders, a part of him couldn't help but to feel unease. He was one of the kings he loyally served, he admired his power and dedication, but there was something in him he couldn't understand.
"I had already thought about it myself. Under normal circumstances it would be a very effective strategy, but the target has already proven his ability to remove all poisons in his body at will. If he were to realize the tributes are poisoned before sustaining any meaningful damage, he would simply heal and stop following the path we spent so much time studying. This would also warn the target someone is attempting to kill him, which would prevent us from performing sneak attacks with the same level of effectiveness or use other poison dependent strategies."
The argument's logic ruthlessly dismantled his suggestion without leaving anything for him to say. After silence had engulfed the room for a few seconds, his lord concluded with a remark.
"Yours was a risk-wise ineffective suggestion, but way superior to the previous one in terms of approach. You are improving quickly. If you keep growing at this rate, it won't be long before I start to trust you with important operations."
Those words of praise came completely unexpected. He no longer knew how to react or what to say. He couldn't understand what lord Raal was thinking at all; probably the only ones able to do so were the servants he himself created.
Setting aside the attempts in discerning his master's thoughts, he decided to just ask him directly.
"My lord, could you share with your servant the plan you intend to use to bring down the dragon?"
A few seconds of silence passed before the answer arrived.
"I have ideated a strategy capable of slaying the dragon that puts us under minimal risk, but there still are some variables I need to fix before I share it with my comrades. Until then, I will keep studying the target and think whether a better plan exist."
Following those words they both returned to observe the dragon in silence, looking for details that might have been missed the previous times. The way he moved, the intervals at which he breathed, how he ate; all the high-leveled servants composing the espionage squad had now studied that scene once. They would have been able to describe each of his scales had someone asked them.
Suddenly, interrupting the motionless state they were in, his lord swiftly brought a hand to his head and asked a question to someone who wasn't in the room.
"Yes?"
Realizing lord Raal had received a [message], he continued to carry out his orders in silence while a part of him was attempting to reconstruct the conversation from the half he could hear.
"Excellent, where was it? How many have you found? Good. Don't touch them, I will be there in a moment."
The conversation ended as quickly as it had begun. His lord then walked a few steps away from the window and finally took his eyes off the dragon.
"Keep studying the target until he leaves. Report immediately to me if he does anything unusual."
As the one he served was about to leave he lowered his head in a bow, but remembering how much importance lord Raal put in efficiency over form he did so without taking his eyes off the dragon.
"My lord."
The hooded shadow then engulfed himself in even deeper darkness, one through which even his trained eyes couldn't see through. The portal to the dark world opened, and his lord completely vanished from their plane of existence.
As he grabbed a thick branch to redirect the momentum accumulated in his controlled fall to propel himself forward, Shen thought of how disappointing this all was. He then kicked a trunk to avoid mid-air collision with the tree and kept running at breakneck speed through the forest, remaining several meters above the ground while jumping from tree to tree.
The tracker at the head of their formation suddenly altered his course, causing all of them to once more change direction. Then they all jumped over a river barely five meters wide and kept going without slowing down for even a second.
While Shen kept following the ranger reading the tracks, there was only one thought in his mind.
Why was he doing this?
Generate a stable food income. When he first accepted the job he was attracted by the prospective of exploring a completely unknown world, fight mysterious opponents and use his perfect body to overcome great obstacles. He had been in the new world for two full weeks, and you know what had happened? Nothing. Just days and days of running in some god-forsaken forest with a bunch of elves, hunting some weak monsters even a noob wouldn't grind with.
Wake up, go hunt for hours, return home. That was his day. The fights he managed to get in were few and far between, not to mention utterly disappointing and over in a matter of seconds.
The ranger changed direction once more; rising one hand to signal the tracks they were now following had been left less than a day earlier. Shen scanned the area for powerful Ki, but aside for the seven of them there still was nothing whose level was over ten.
He wasn't too clear on what the others were doing, but he was pretty sure they were having more fun than he was. Only Zaiho didn't seemed too happy to be there.
Shen wasn't asking for much, just to fight someone seriously. Back at the castle he had sparred a couple of times with both Azul and Abelkin, but there was no way those could be considered fair fights; those two and their combat optimized builds could demolish him whenever they liked. Since his sparring partners hadn't come in the new world, there weren't powerful random encounters and the only other maxed-level physical fighters were top-tier power players, he had to either find a fairer challenge or be stuck in an endless loop of defeats while banging his head against indestructible walls.
Then, to his side, his Ki sense picked up multiple signals. Roughly five hundred meters away from them, twelve monsters divided in two groups of three and nine were seconds away from grouping up. They were the preys he had followed for the last hour. It was an unusually large pack; he rarely found more than three or four at once.
He immediately analyzed the intensity of their auras to assess their level; but as stronger entities could be detected from further away, he already had a good idea of their strength.
"Humph. Thirty at best."
Saying no more, he broke off formation. He could hear the elf at his back shouting "Everyone, follow lord Shen." but he gave it no weight.
He made Ki flow in his body to give his unarmed strikes the [Merciful] modifier; this way he could bring them back alive without having to hold his fists. He then poured Ki in his legs, gathering large amounts of mystical energy into the lower half of his body.
"[Ki jump]."
With no interest in the elves he was leaving behind, Shen released the stored Ki all at once to perform a jump beyond the realm of possibility.
He rose far above the trees, establishing visual contact with the now unified beast group midway through his arc.
They were about two meters tall, with greenish fur and thick spikes on their back. In Yggdrasil there were monsters called baloths, a species of large beasts quite similar to them, but the ones he was after were considerably weaker than their game counterparts.
He landed in the middle of them, his impact with the ground causing a large cloud of dust to engulf the area. The monsters had no idea what was happening, and they would never have the time to figure it out.
Though the dust prevented the baloths from seeing him, Shen could have sensed their Ki even if they hid in a hole several hundred meters below the ground. Before any of them managed to do so much as turning their heads, he had already halved their numbers. Moving at supernatural speed from one to the other and stunning each of them with a single strike, the monsters were already all on the ground long before the rest of his party could reunite with him.
Before a minute had passed the elves had already tied the beasts. The first few times Shen had brought out hunting groups of several dozen servants, but he had quickly realized the only thing he needed was someone to bring him close to the preys and to tie them up once he was done.
With the fun part already over, Shen decided to bring out his medallion. He had already done what he was supposed to, so he might as well just tell Govan to open a [Gate] on his location to bring the baloths at the flaying castle and get over with it.
However, a moment before activating the jewel's communication ability, Shen stopped. He looked at his left, observing something only he could see.
"My lord?"
The head tracker was standing in front of him.
"Is there something troubling you?"
Shen kept watching through his Ki vision.
"Eight hundred meters north of here. I can sense a Ki above average."
It was far more powerful than the ones emanated from the beasts, even superior to some members of his squad. It seemed to be around level sixty, perhaps even more.
"Lord Shen, how do you wish us to act?"
The Ki he sensed was roughly moving toward their location. There was no sure way to tell whether it was heading for them, but his instinct told him they would definitely meet if he stayed.
Ki vision was an incredibly powerful detection technique, able to locate all Ki in the surrounding area according to the intensity. It functioned in all directions simultaneously and was hardly hindered by physical cover. But even if it could only be fooled by the highest-level concealment techniques, it was far from perfect.
The reliance on Ki was itself the problem. Ki flowed in everything, even in those unable to use it, but it wasn't a reliable way to determine someone's power. A monk's Ki was directly proportional to his power, as was the case with most physical fighters; however magicians and everyone else whose power wasn't in his attack and HP would have way less Ki than a fighter of the same level. Govan for instance was a pure wizard, and though his HP were good the physical attack was simply pathetic; his Ki and a level fifty warrior's would appear to Shen as the same.
The one coming toward them could be everything from a level sixty monk to a level one hundred cleric, no way of determining which from that distance.
In the end, after a brief analysis, Shen smiled for the first time in over a week.
"We wait here."
At the meetings, Raal had told them magic wasn't common in this world and martial training rarely brought someone over level twenty; there were however strong monsters with special powerful abilities. As it was fairly unlikely he would meet either a powerful magic user or a highly trained warrior, it was very probable for him to encounter something in the middle; perhaps a monster around level eighty with strong special abilities. It would surely put up a better fight than the baloths did.
Everyone in his team had been selected primarily for their quick movement capabilities, even if something went wrong they could just escape in the forest while he dealt with the opponent alone. Shen had hence decided to wait for the quickly approaching monster to reach them and then defeat him in single combat. It would be his best fight ever since the transfer.
However, as the Ki's source was getting closer and his mind was running wild over what kind of mysterious monster he would be facing, multiple weaker Ki appeared around it.
"Cubs?"
They were roughly level fifty, and as the distance between them shortened multiple weaker ones appeared. They numbered fifteen by the time they crossed the five hundred meters range.
Their Ki appeared to be weaker than his group's, but his team was outnumbered over two to one.
Shen decided to not alter his previous decision. He was a level one hundred pure monk, and even though he was in the lower half of the max-leveled players ranking list, the opponents didn't seem to have anyone at his level. He would be able to cover for their lower numbers by taking multiple opponents at once.
Shen kept following their Ki as they approached. Considering the direction they were coming from, they would arrive from behind a hill about one hundred meters away from them.
When the approaching group was three hundred meters away, he heard a ranger place an arrow in his bow. Shortly after, everyone else in his group followed the example and readied their weapons. The incoming opponents had entered their perception's range.
Then, after he followed their Ki almost all the way up the hill, they stopped.
The elf and the other archers in his team all drew their bows, aiming them behind the hill.
"Lord Shen. Our opponents are large-sized creatures, all nearly stationary within our striking range. With your permission, we can launch a preemptive strike at any moment."
He looked at the hill covering their visual. They had run toward them at a steady pace all the way up and then stopped before entering their field of view. It wasn't the way a pack of beasts would act. What were they doing behind the hill? And who were they?
Shen wasn't the kind of guy that would make long extensive preparations and evaluate every minor detail to prepare a plan. From personal experience, such plans very rarely went exactly as desired. He was more the type who acted based on instinct, quickly reacting to whatever his opponent threw at him without thinking too much about it. It was a way of fighting with many downsides, but mid-operation adapting speed was surely not one of them.
He trusted gut feeling, and right now it told him behind the hill there weren't beasts.
"Permission denied. Don't engage without my orders under any circumstance."
He was in a problematic position. When he though the approaching group to be composed of mindless beasts, being in a open valley wasn't that huge of a deal; but if the other party was able to strategize they could endanger their preys. He couldn't even launch a preemptive attack; things might turn out ugly according to the other's identity. The only option he had left was to wait and be prepared to respond quickly to whatever happened.
Following those thoughts, he heard multiple incredibly heavy objects falling on the ground right where the other group was. Then, shortly after, other sounds seemed to indicate some form of manual labor. Before he could try to guess what was happening, several boulders flew in the air toward their direction.
They were under attack.
There were fourteen massive rocks in the air rapidly moving toward them, all about one cubic meter in size, the smallest at least two thousands tons. Anything they hit would be smashed to a pulp.
Shen moved before having a plan. He quickly estimated the approximate point those rocks would fall in as he run ahead of the formation. Three of them would hit the baloths while five would fall in front of them and could roll over the formation; as far as he was concerned, the remaining six were nothing more than a distraction to be ignored.
Using a small amount of Ki he jumped in the air, intercepting the trajectory of the boulders that would strike first. The initial two passed at his sides, each less than a palm away from him. Once they were aligned slightly behind him he pushed them outward at supernatural speed with his palms, keeping his balance as he deflected them both away from the formation and propelling himself further above in a single move.
As he went higher in the air, he bent his knees and shifted his weight in order to put his feet on the third rock. He then used Ki to increase his leg strength and jumped toward the ground, moving toward the next incoming boulder closest to his group while deflecting the trajectory of the one he jumped from.
He landed diagonally with one foot on the ground just two meters away from his party; the rock about to roll over him in less than a second. He exploited the momentum accumulated in the downward jump using his foot already on the ground as the fulcrum to a spinning kick, merging his previous motion with an extremely efficient attack. As his Ki-covered heel collided with the rolling boulder, the rock shattered in countless pieces that went flying away from the circle.
After kicking the stone away he was about to check where the next one would hit, but he immediately realized it had been covered by the one he just shattered.
The boulder would hit him before he could regain his balance. Jumping away would have been easy, but doing so would just mean someone else would have to deal with the stone; and rangers weren't exactly known for their high defenses. He never liked escort missions in games and his role in a fight was hardly to tank incoming attacks, but right now that was what he was doing, so he would have to get creative.
Even though the momentum of his spinning kick had been greatly reduced after hitting the rock, it was still enough to be made use of. He brought his outward-extended still-moving leg close to the one he was turning around, this way increasing the speed of his rotation.
The moment he was giving his back at the boulder he bent a leg while moving the other away from it, lowering his stance trying to get as much stability as it was possible to have in such conditions. He then covered his elbow with Ki and slammed it against the rock with as much strength as he could bring out from that position.
In the unbelievably short time frame it took his elbow to touch the stone, he poured Ki in it to change the damage he was dealing from bludgeoning to slashing and to increase his striking power by several times. The rock perfectly split in two halves at his back, both moving past him at his sides. In the same way he previously did with the first two incoming boulders, he deflected them away from his groups with his palms.
The moment preceding the arrival of the last few stones was enough for him to fully regain his balance. The way he just used the variable type of damage his unarmed strikes could deal to neutralize the last rock gave him an idea of how to get rid of the last three.
Shen moved toward the next stone so that it would pass by his side, then he shifted his weight forward to balance what he was about to do. Switching the damage type of his right hand to piercing, he penetrated the boulder with the same ease he would have found in water.
Shortly before the rock reached his wrist, he opened the hand and interrupted the piercing ability. With a perfect grip on the boulder he exploited its momentum to make it do a half spin around him and throw it toward the next stone, making both of them explode in the crash.
With only one rock left, Shen had now come to the full realization that even several objects weighting thousands of tons flying at him were hardly a threat to his new body.
He remained still, waiting for the boulder to cover the remaining distance for him.
His fist now dealt once more bludgeoning damage. He poured Ki in it to increase its power and hit the rock with all his strength. Shen smiled as the boulder exploded in countless tiny fragments before his eyes.
Then, at his back, he heard multiple stones falling behind the formation. From the moment he saw the boulders until now, less than ten seconds had passed.
Amazed by the reaction speed he hadn't even in real life, he looked back at his group to check if anyone was injured.
They all appeared to be unharmed, but their eyes and bows were still fixed on the location the boulders came from; they were still following the "don't engage" order he issued moments ago. It was now clear that the Ki he sensed didn't belonged to beasts.
He remained at the head of the formation and looked back to the unknown group through his Ki vision. They had begun to move.
Then, from behind the hill, several extremely tall figures appeared one after the other and walked toward them.
When one usually looked upon Shen, the first thing they noticed was his height. With two meters and thirty of densely packed steel hard muscles, he towered above most other players. He rarely spoke with someone without having to look down, and in fights he often found himself battling opponents less than half his height. Most of the people describing him would use the term "giant". Some of the guild members that picked dwarf or goblin as their race once lamented how uncomfortable they felt in talking to him in the game. It had been over two years ago, and only now he understood what they meant.
The fifteen individuals emerging from behind the hill were all over nine meters tall. With long braided beards and little to no hairs, their heads were somewhat small when compared to the rest of their bodies. Their skin had the color of brass, likely overly tanned from the forced continued exposure to the sun. Their arms were robust and long, with muscles built over a lifetime of carrying items fit for their size. Their legs were incredibly thick, evolved over countless generations to sustain their own weight.
None of them could be considered beautiful in the traditional sense of the term. Had they been five times smaller, an onlooker might actually have the courage to call them misshapen. They all had some form of deformity, giving them a nearly bestial look.
Each carried a crudely built mace, created by attaching large animal fangs to branchless trees. Their armor was made of several layers of pelt badly sewed together, forming a thick defensive cover over a palm wide; they however caused their lower half to appear even more disproportioned.
It was a group of hill giants.
Many players considered giants to be the larger version of trolls. Though they lacked the regeneration ability characterizing the latters, they shared some of the principal characteristics that made trolls famous in the game.
With incredibly high physical stats and proportionally low intelligence, they were the favored opponents of all whose who wanted to fight an all-brawn-and-no-brains monster. They compensated the lack of racial regeneration with strength, defenses and vitality higher than anything the troll race could offer.
The incredible variety of environment-themed sub-races was the greatest similarity between the two species, offering frost giants, fire giants, river giants, desert giants, stone giants and many others.
The hill giant was the most basic version one could encounter. They didn't possess the spell-like abilities most other giant varieties shared, nor the immunities and resistances they developed in their favored environment, but they moved in groups and threw rocks together from afar.
Unlike a projectile or a long range spell, thrown rocks were more similar to a smashing attack executed from a safe distance. Anti-projectile defenses didn't consider them as such, and even though they don't deal too much damage they are hard for some players to parry due to the rock's tendency of breaking in smaller parts when blocked. Hill giants earned their name for their favored strategy; going on top of a hill to maximize the rock's range and throw several at the same time.
Shen's previous assessment of their level in the eighties had been under the assumption there weren't monsters whose Ki would closely match their level or warriors trained to the point of reaching those levels in the first place, so he approximated their actual power to be ten or twenty levels higher than what the Ki suggested. However, due to them belonging to the all-brawn-and-no-brains monster category, their Ki was actually a fairly realistic approximation of their power.
Part of him was disappointed for the approaching group to turn out weaker than expected, but a sense of curiosity had already overtaken such negative emotion. Hill giants in the game never appeared beyond level fifty, but among them there was one over ten levels above that.
He was walking at the head of the other giants, covering over three meters with each of his steps; his beard nearly white and his head covered in wrinkles. Several iron plates reinforced his pelt-made padded armor; closer inspection revealed them to be numerous human sized breastplates crudely tied to his body. Shields and chains from the same source further strengthened his defenses, protecting vital areas and keeping together the mountain of objects that made his armor. His mace was also made out of a branchless tree, but the animal fangs had been removed in favor of the much superior iron, unwillingly provided by the late owners of roughly forty swords. Who he fought was as clear as who had won.
Shen then realized he wasn't the only one studying; that giant was also checking the area, his eyes constantly moving from the shattered boulders to Shen. He then looked behind his back, toward a relatively smaller giant staying behind the others. He was holding a rock shaped like a pyramid, sculpted with the same refinement that characterized the rest of their equipment. When the giant's eyes met, they both nodded and the smaller one tightened his grip on their concept of special weapon.
The giant then raised his arm, making the ones following him stop about fifty meters from Shen. He then proceeded alone for about twenty meters, stopped and leaned his mace on the ground, holding it like a cane.
Shen looked behind. Four of the six subordinated he brought along were still pointing their arrows at the giants, the remaining two had their staves ready to cast spells.
The question now was: what was he supposed to do?
Game's giants, with a very limited number of exceptions, were just monsters to be killed. They pretty much all had negative karma, making them either evil or just chaotic in the best case scenarios. All the lore he had ever heard depicted them as savages that attacked the defenseless or even the source of some of the most gruesome pieces of backstory in the game. The game designers had made one thing perfectly clear: kill giants on sight.
The one in front of him had obviously killed several humans and was responsible of throwing over a dozen boulders at them, but it was equally clear he wanted to negotiate.
Strong of his estimate forty levels below himself and his most trusted gut feeling, Shen decided to go talk with him.
"My previous order stand, don't engage without orders. And lower your bows, don't point them at the giants."
And in a voice so feeble only the rangers could hear he added "And be ready to act."
Following those words, the rangers lowered their aim and watched him proceed toward the hill giant.
Shen kept walking until he was about five meters from the giant, then he looked up. It was probably due to the difference in proportions caused by the large foots and the small head, but being this close to the almost ten meters tall warrior made him look even larger than he actually was.
"I am called Zur Trunkarms, chief of the boulderfeet giants."
His voice was strong and loud, befitting a warrior of his size.
"I am called Shen Shou, king in the flying castle."
They had all previously agreed that it was all right for them to say this much if it ever were to become necessary. He then continued immediately, asking the question in his head without giving the giant a chance to inquire any further.
"What brings you here?"
The white bearded giant lifted his arm, proving Trunkarms to be a most fitting surname, and pointed at the monsters guarded by Shen's group.
"I was leading my tribe's warriors in our baloth hunt. Those are our preys."
Shen understood quite early where the conversation was heading.
"There must be a misunderstanding. I assure you those baloths were all caught by us."
The giant lowered his arm, bringing it back on the handle of his mace. His half-closed eyes filled with displeasure.
"We have been following them since yesterday's morning. We crossed woods, rivers and valleys to get them. The preys you took are ours."
Shen understood quite well how that giant felt. He had encountered many kill-stealers in the Yggdrasil days; none of them got to go away on their legs. Considering he once attacked his own allies when they stole his kills, Zur was being far calmer about it than he would have been instead. There was however one somewhat major detail needing to be addressed.
"I fully understand how you feel, but you were hundreds of meters away when we captured this group. A prey isn't entirely own until someone catch it, and you did nothing to signal these baloths as yours."
The giant curved down a side of his mouth in revulsion.
"Giants are the only baloth hunters in the forest. Beginning two weeks ago the baloths became harder and harder to find, the few remaining ones are ours by right."
Shen was loosing his patience. Aside for the utterly disgusted looks the giant was giving him, he was also being unreasonable. For as much as he abhorred kill stealing and respected the effort anyone put in a fight, no one could claim ownership of something meant to be for all. Every time a guild monopolized the monsters in a public area for their drops and killed everyone else who hunted in it, they were even worse than kill-stealers.
"No hunter has the right to claim an entire species as his personal prey. If I see a baloth and can capture it, what am I supposed to do? Let it go so that one day maybe a giant might catch it?"
Zur's eyebrows grew closer to each other, forming an enraged expression on his face. He tightened the grip his hands had on the mace and spoke with disdain in his voice.
"My people need those beasts to survive."
"So do mine." Retorted Shen.
Zur let one hand go of the mace and took a step forward. While normally one step wouldn't make much of a difference with the two interlocutors standing five meters apart, the nearly ten meters tall giant's step covered about half of that distance.
"Giants eat a lot more than humans."
It was true. Giants, as well as most other large-sized monsters, have increase food consumption as racial weakness. It was only made worse by the fact that for every size-category increase the food consumption augmented exponentially. The flying castle also hosted several creatures with this weakness, but they solved the problem long ago by giving them rings of sustenance. The giants needed those baloths much more than they did.
That was however only assuming the number of mouths each side had to feed was equal.
He stepped forward like the hill giant did, not remotely intimidated by the show of strength a lower leveled creature attempted to put on.
"We both have the duty to feed our people. While it is true that your subjects individually need more food than mine, the ones I am responsible for far outnumber yours. The giant's hunger doesn't come even close to bridge the gap between yours needs and ours.
Hill giants were very well known in the game due to the frequency they appeared on most maps; but unlike species such as goblins, whose large spread over many areas was explained by their increased reproduction speed, hill giants did so due to their nomadic nature.
If in the game you were to encounter hill giants on Jötunheimr and follow them for long enough, you would eventually find their tribe's camp. They changed location at irregular intervals, so one had to exploit this finding as quickly as possible. Some bragged about defeating the entire camp alone, others trolled noobs saying that if you were to give a legendary item to the tribe leader he would upgrade it to divine class for you; but no matter the story's reliability, all reported hill giant village's instances had something in common: the giants were never over fifty.
It was a wild guess, something he said purely because of what he knew to be true in a game; but he trusted his instinct far more than logic.
"We need those beasts!"
He took Zur's shout of anger as confirmation of his gut feeling's reliability.
"If you giants are in such desperate need of baloths, shouldn't you go hunt others rather than staying here and expect me to give you the ones I captured?"
Zur looked down upon him; he then threateningly lowered his posture, shortening the distance between his head and Shen.
"Capturing a baloth is only the last moment of the hunt. If in danger they group together. When giants hunt, we chase them over the large areas so that they form a numerous group for us to take. We have just gathered every baloth in this side of the forest, the least you could do is to give us the nine we grouped before reaching this valley."
Well, the number of baloths was unusually high. An equal division could be the most peaceful resolution to this quarrel.
"Nine baloths are a little too much. I acknowledge you gathered three quarters of them, but we grouped the rest and defeated them all. I think splitting them six each is only generous."
Zur's face was showing nothing but rage. He straightened his back, putting once more his incredible height on full display. His mace left the ground and rested on his shoulder, while his free hand closed in a fist. The hill giant warriors behind him all tightened their grips on their melee weapons.
"Hadn't you meddled in our hunt we would have gotten all of them on our own."
Shen looked at the group behind him with the corner of his eye. The rangers had their arrows lowered and the druids their staved behind their backs; anyone underestimating those elves would be drilled with arrows and buried in the ground before having the time to realize their mortal mistake.
"How? Throwing rock at them as well? Is that how giants solve all their problems?"
Zur snapped.
"Humans are nothing more than little weaklings! Slimy poison-tongued cowards siding with whoever is stronger and betraying their friends the very moment someone is offering even a half-rotten fish more!"
That was it. As the only human present, that was personal.
"Wow. Those are a lot of words for someone that with a lifespan of centuries can't even figure out farming. Has some blood finally reached your brain? It took it only several decades. This might just be the best chance you will ever have to build something with a roof on the top."
Once both sides were done spitting over the possibility of a peaceful resolution, Zur was the first to attack.
He lowered his posture by multiple meters while leaning forward, building as much momentum as possible in the upper half of his boy. Once his torso was almost parallel to the ground, he used his shoulder as the fulcrum of the lever his mace had turned into. With the combined forces of gravity, inertia and the trunk-like giant's arm, the mace became the deadly conduct of an attack uncharacteristically efficient and precise for a hill giant.
The earth-shattering blow was sufficiently strong to crumble stonewalls and slay any living being it made contact with. It was an attack many orders of magnitude above simple large thrown rocks, born with the inhuman strength of a giant, the technique of a warrior and experience gathered in over a century of battles against humans and forest monsters. The only thing the thrown rocks had more than such magnificent blow was increased range, but nearly everyone beholding it would agree its sheer power was entirely worth the decreased range; Shen was however in the disagreeing few.
He was a close ranged fighter, but his defense relied on dodging attacks rather than blocking them. Any rock going past him could have potentially killed the beasts he was supposed to bring back alive, but anything close-ranged could just be dodged.
He moved two steps to the side, watching with his quickened perception of reality the mace slowly heading toward the ground he had been on.
Giants were strong, but many seemed to forget just how low their agility was. Shen's instead was the second highest the guild had ever had, with only Mr. Sneaky Shadow ahead of him.
All-brawn-and-no-brains monsters were loved for many reasons. All non-exceedingly-specialized combat classes could deal with them easily and there was also a certain charm in defeating powerful opponents with a smart trick, but more importantly they served as a wall to break for players that wished to begin their journey toward competitive play. Anyone struggling against a monster whose battle strategy could be summarized with "attack until he is dead", wasn't even worthy of a level one hundred character.
As the giant's mace reached his side, Shen instinctively went with the monk's standard battle approach. Step one: disarm your opponent at the first opening.
Ask any player and they will all agree, monks are fundamentally weaker than warriors. The first step every monk needs to take is accepting this as fact and work around it. A warrior with a weapon is superior to a monk, a warrior without a weapon is inferior to a monk; the next step is fairly intuitive.
A warrior and a monk also both have very adaptable fighting styles, though the two of them adopting the same would inevitably result with the warrior performing better. The most important difference is that while a warrior needs to be equipped with gear suitable for the style he plans to adopt, a monk can switch between styles with just some Ki; Shen had even selected a monk archetype made especially for this, all to place fast adaptability at the core of his fighting style.
With Zur still midway through his attack, Shen used Ki to make his leg deal slashing damage and used an upward kick on the falling mace, taking advantage of the giant's strength to further increase the damage to the weapon.
Had there been a level one hundred player in place of the hill giant, that reckless opening-filled attack would have cost him his divine-ranked weapon. Of the crudely built mace probably ranking even lower than low, Zur was now holding only the handle.
Moving at the preternatural speed his agility allowed, his kicking leg made a complete circle above him and firmly planted itself in the ground. With now perfect balance and stability, Shen moved in front of the still-falling severed mace and took a fraction of a second to see what counterattack would cause the most damage.
The hill giant warriors behind Zur had begun moving when they saw their leader bending to attack, but none of them had yet completed his first step. Their arc-like formation wasn't as neat as it would have been if they hadn't been on uneven ground, now he wasn't sure how many giants he could hit at once.
He gathered a considerable amount of Ki on the palm of his hand and aligned himself so that three giants ended up on the opposite side of the mace's head. He then abandoned the "weapon damaging" style for a "long distance smashing attack" one, ironically suited against hill giants.
With his feet solidly anchored to the ground, he placed his Ki-filled palm on the mace's head shortly before it could hit the terrain. Then, releasing all the stored Ki at once, the swords-covered half trunk flew at insane speed toward the attacking giants.
One of Zur's legs was grazed in the process. Shen hadn't considered it when he had decided to strike at the warriors in the rear. It was unexpected, but not unwelcomed. An example of the nice things one could sometimes experience when fighting while making a plan on the go.
The death-thirsty mass of blunt wood and sharp iron flew toward the warriors. The first was hit right in the stomach. His padded armor did nothing to protect him, as his body did nothing to protect the ones standing behind. Once the bloodstained spinning half mace had produced two messy halves of the first giant, it flew barely slower toward the second. He was hit in the shoulder; the force of the attack made the oversized projectile continue unfazed after brutally severing his arm. After leaving behind the giant doomed to bleed to death in a few seconds, the broken mace headed toward the last two giants unfortunate enough to be at the edges of its path. Their fate was analogue to the one they stood behind, lost of a limb, countless cuts from several spinning rusted swords followed by a quick and painful death.
The bloodstained improvised boulder collided with the hill, after which it kept bouncing until it was lost somewhere in the close by forest.
It took the giants a moment to realize what had happened. In the few seconds it took their leader to execute his legendary quick strike, a lone human had destroyed his extraordinary mace, wounded his leg and slayed four hill giant warriors in a single strike.
After the moment passed, all the giants sprang into action. However, not all of them moved with the same objective in mind.
The two giants left isolated in the right side of the formation, having barely escaped Shen's counterattack, decided their lives were meant for more than to become grass fertilizer. Other two on the opposite side of the arc, having no one behind them to stop their escape, promptly followed their example and attempted to put as much distance as possible between them and the red haired human.
Rather than the five club-wielding giants charging at him or the rock thrower spinning around his weirdly shaped boulder to build up momentum, the deserting giants constituted a larger problem.
Azul had decided only Mr. Sneaky Shadow could make direct contact with the new world's natives, as he was the only one they were sure would never be found out. If some giants got away and spread stories of what they saw, he would have his hands filled with a lot of trouble.
"Capture them."
No more details were needed for his party to execute the command. The rangers drew their bows as one and loosed the arrows in a perfect line. Each of them hit a giant in the back of the knee, causing far more damage than one would have imagined from arrows of that size. As the giants fell on the ground the druids immediately cast their spells, summoning magical vines to restrict their ability to move.
Once the deserters had been dealt with, Zur had already once more attempted an attack.
He shifted all his weight on his good leg and raised the injured one. Following the tactic his tribe was named after, the chief of the boulderfeet giants was willing to sacrifice his wounded leg to crush him.
Shen had a smirk on his lips as the colossal foot fell toward him. Pouring large amounts of Ki in his hands that considerably reduced his reserves, Shen raised his palms to block the giant's stomping attack. A moment before it could turn in a contest of strength, Shen released all the stored Ki toward the giant's foot.
The six other hill giants still in the fight saw something contrary to everything they believed in. A human under their tribe chief's foot had pushed the strongest giant they had ever known dozens of meters in the air, making him spin multiple times before finally falling to the ground behind them.
Once the great Zur landed on his head, all the giants and elves witnessing the fall let their thoughts be clearly visible on their faces.
There's no way he survived that.
Blood was flowing out of Zur's body, filling the giant-sized crater made in the fall. Most of his bones were visibly broken, the skull being completely unrecognizable.
A corner of Shen mind felt displeasure for the death of an unusually strong hill giant, but it wasn't really that important. Izora had already figured out resurrection, she could just bring him back later if he was still curious enough.
A strong incoming sound brought his attention back to the still ongoing battle. Even when nine of the fifteen giants were either dead or incapacitated, the remaining six kept fighting with all their might.
The five giants that were still charging at him had split into two smaller groups. The left-handed giants were on one side while the right-handed took on the other. Running toward him in two almost parallel lines, they wanted to fight him five on one while exploiting the advantage of both charge and flanking attacks.
It was an interesting tactic, one that allowed making the most of a warrior group fighting a single more powerful opponent. He had never seen such thing in the game; it was probably the result of fighters getting creative to compensate for the lack of magic users, or maybe they were just that desperate.
With Ki boosting his speed Shen run outside of the double charging lines, reaching the side hosting three giants. Then, extending his arm outward and making it deal slashing damage, he sprinted to the opposite end of the line while cutting away as many legs as he could find. In the short time it took him to finish, his hand had penetrated six ankles and now half as many giants were bleeding on the ground.
As the three remaining ones saw their companions falling on the ground, the stone-carrying warrior had finally accumulated enough momentum and threw the unusually shaped boulder at him.
The rock flew toward Shen without spinning, the point making it the most aerodynamic object anyone had thrown at him today. It was somewhat late in the fight for it, but Shen had been waiting for this moment ever since the sword-covered mace had killed the giants standing right next to that one.
He moved aside and made the boulder fly past him. Once it was behind, he made his hand deal piercing damage and penetrated it in the back. Then he would have thrown it at the two giants standing in a straight line, but it was never going to happen.
The boulder broke into countless pieces the moment he pierced it, revealing to be nothing but a stone husk carved out of two large rocks and sealed with wax. Once the outer shell was destroyed, countless little yellow-striped insects flew in the air around him. The boulder had been filled with beehives to turn it into a wide area weapon.
Shen was… mildly surprised? Against normal humans it would have probably been quite effective, but a level one hundred monk's skin was as resistant as legendary armor. Those bees weren't going to harm him even if they had been billions. That however didn't changed the fact they were surprisingly annoying to have around.
He gathered Ki in his chest, creating a small mystic globe inside his body. Shen then made it burst to generate an explosion with him at the center.
"[Ki wave]."
The gathered Ki propagated quickly, destroying all the bees flying around him. Since Shen used only a fraction of his Ki, both range and destructive power were low; but it was more than enough to eliminate a bunch of annoying bugs.
Having wasted his counterattack opportunity with what the giants considered to be their secret weapon, he now had to find a new way to deal with the remaining three. This regretfully happened whenever he attempted to plan something.
Shen checked who the opponent closest to him was. The three remaining hill giants were all at the same distance; they had in fact surrounded him while he was preparing the Ki wave.
He decided to finish it once and for all. Shen covered all his body in Ki, strengthening it and switching all the damage type he would deal to piercing.
The first to go down was the beehive thrower. He made a Ki jump to reach his chest, and once he was there no resistance was found. He passed right through him, leaving a man-sized hole in his chest.
His next jump brought him in front of another giant looking in horror at the falling body of his comrade; he realized he was about to meet the same fate. The remaining two giants were now in a straight line. He jumped through them in the same way he just did a moment ago, and the last opponents fell motionless on the ground like puppets whose strings have been cut.
Shen looked at the battlefield that had formed a few moments ago, all the giants were restrained, dead or dying. The four of them that attempted to escape were unmoving on the ground, bound by magical vines tougher than steel.
It was his complete victory.
He walked toward the four almost deserters. They struggled to free themselves from their magical restraints, but to no avail.
Shen went for the giant who had been closest to the ones he killed throwing the severed mace and the first to show his back; his instinct told him he was the most coward of the bunch. When the giant saw him coming, he could no nothing but shiver in fear and look helplessly at the human.
Behind Shen, one of the elves had left the formation and was now running to his side. Once the two of them were in front of the giant, Shen begun the interrogation.
"Where is your village?"
The giant didn't answer, though the fear in his eyes was clear.
"Lord Shen asked you a question."
He opened his mouth, but the answer didn't come right away.
"I… I… I don't know. We followed the tribe leader trough the forest."
At those words Shen tilted his head to the side. The fear he instilled in the giant immediately made him more cooperative.
"But I can track back our steps! It may take a while, but I can bring you back to the village!"
That was hardly a good proposal. Shen bent his knees and lowered his posture, bringing his face closer to the giant's eyes.
"Listen, big guy. You see this elf? He can bring me to your village in less than a couple hours. As for you, the moment you die you stop being my problem. Do yourself a favor and tell me how you can be useful."
His eyes widened in terror as those words left the monk's lips.
"I… I know things! I can tell you everything you want to know of the village! I know where the other tribes meet! I will tell you everything you want to know!"
By now, Shen's opinion of the giant couldn't be any lower.
"Then what are you waiting for?"
He heard the traitorous giant try to suppress a scream of fear.
"There… There are twenty-six giants left in the village! They won't move to a new location until our return. And in two full moons all the giant tribes will meet in a valley; I can show you how to get there!"
Shen had no idea what to do next.
He stood back up and slowly walked away from the giant. He heard the elf at his back saying, "You better hope what you said to be true", but he had other thoughts through his head. Namely, he had no idea of what to do.
He grabbed his medallion and activated its communication ability. He was a fighter, not a planner; that was what guild leaders were for.
The light kept pulsing for a few seconds, constantly changing shape without a clear pattern. Finally, far away from where he was, the one holding another of those medallions accepted the call.
The light quickly formed a demonic shape over the jewel, imposing and fearsome to look at. Horns covered his body and a crown rested on his head. His closed wings resembled a mantle; his arms were crossed on his chest.
"Azul. Something has happened."
"We need to do something before it's too late."
The old man had been talking for over ten minutes; he had stopped listening after one.
"The number of rats in the sewers had been steadily increasing at an alarmingly rapid pace. Unless we divert the twelve percent of this month's road maintenance budget to finance a disinfestation operation, the colony will grow to the point underground maintenance is impossible."
He glanced at the other people in the room. Either they were better actors than he gave them credit for, or somehow they had an endless reserve of willpower to actually pay attention for minutes of uninterrupted rat talk.
"Comparing the twin reviews prepared by the consultants it is clear this rodents do not belong to the same species that presented an analogue problem seven years prior, but are instead a more aggressive race with a higher reproduction capacity and above normal size. They already drew off their less invasive counterparts, and if they proceed maintaining this…"
"Thank you, Lord Broscov. Like always, you have made your point abundantly clear."
If he heard once more the word "rat" he would have the one saying it imprisoned regardless of status.
"All in favor to proceed with lord Broscov's proposal. Raise hand."
He, the old man and the other three head nobles forming the city council raised their hands.
"All contrary to the proposal. Raise hands."
There were no more people left to vote, but traditions had to be upheld.
"The proposal is unanimously approved. Lord Broscov is authorized to proceed as he have detailed to solve the problem."
Once the rat issue was finally settled, he inertly sighed in relief. Lord Broscov was the eldest among the family heads, which made his competency and experience a valuable resource when well targeted, but every time he proposed something he would talk until it was put to vote out of desperation.
"Let's then proceed to the next item. Lord Nehim."
As the elderly man sat down, a blond man in his late thirties stood and addressed the gathered nobles.
"The tribute is already being gathered as we speak. I have hired laborers from the outer ring to transport everything in the inner storage house; tomorrow morning the southern half of the main road is to be made inaccessible for anyone else. Then in the following two days the raw materials will be processed to better satisfy the tastes of the dragon lord. The process is estimated to end six hours before his arrival, which will give us ample time to transport it to the main square."
Gerber El Nihem was competent, efficient and reliable. There was but a single flaw in his conduct; they both hated each other to the bone.
"Everything is regular then. All in favor to proceed with lord Nehim's proposal. Raise hand."
Five voters agreed to the passage of laborers from the outer to the inner ring.
"All contrary to the proposal. Raise hands."
He could think of at least a couple of people unwilling to let inhabitants of the outer ring tarnish their beautiful streets with their dirty feet, himself for instance. But no one was foolish enough to even risk a delay when the dragon lord's tribute was the subject.
"The proposal is unanimously approved. Lord Nehim is authorized to proceed as he have detailed to respect the schedule."
Did it just have to be laborers of the outer ring? Couldn't he have though of literally anyone else?
"Let's then proceed to the next item. Lord Sharlev."
As Gerber sat down with nothing left to say, another noble stood in his place. He knew them to be about the same age, but the former had aged considerably worse than the latter.
"There are concerning developments regarding the giants sighted two days ago in the forest southeast of here."
Those words sent chills down his spine. Giants had proven to be the greatest threat Ulovale could ever face. Areas of the city never completely recovered from their assault even if more than a decade had passed; many nobles had perished to defend their home. All concerning giants was listened with the upmost attention.
"A scouting troupe had been following their tracks from a safe distance ever since the sighting report reached us, and they followed them in what appear to be a monster hunt."
Monsters were hunting other monsters. As long as they both remained in the forest it wasn't his problem, but if they were to reach Ulovale's fields it would have catastrophic consequences.
"The group is formed by fifteen warriors, one of which I believe to be his tribe leader."
He waited for the following words with fear in his heart. If they were headed toward the city it would inevitably become a battle. Though their walls defended them from all monsters living in the forest, giants were able to quickly open a breach throwing boulders from the distance. Even if lower in numbers compared to their last assault, giants were always a threat.
"The scouts followed their trail until they reached a rather small valley in the deepest part of the forest, after which all tracks disappeared."
Disappeared?
Seeing the doubt on his face, lord Sharlev continued his explanation.
"I have examined the location with my own eyes and I conform the tracks suddenly end in that valley. I fear our lifelong opponents have found a way to move without leaving traces. If this were to be true and it is now impossible to track down their location, they could form larger groups without our knowledge and launch a large surprise siege."
Disappearing giants. If anyone else in the room had said it he would have mocked him halfway through the sentence, but openly doubting a war hero and veteran when discussing battle was out of the question; especially if one considered lord Sharlev was one of the nobles supporting him.
"Have you ideated a course of action to counter this threat?"
Their top commander swiftly shared his plan.
"Assuming my hypothesis to be correct, trying to locate giants is now wasted effort. I suggest we immediately reduce our scouting operations and use those men to strengthen the city's defenses. If the giants actually are untraceable, our only option is to maximize our defensive capabilities where we know they will strike. If we later have further proof of this being an isolated case, we will gradually return to adopt our previous modus operandi."
"Lord governor, I wish to suggest an alternative course of action."
Lord Nehim interrupted the commander right before he could bring the matter to the votes. Since forcing to silence the head of a noble family in the council wasn't among his privileges as governor, he had no choice but to gesture him to continue.
"Rather than reforming our entire defense system based on an isolated event, I would suggest to first ascertain the source of this unusual occurrence. We know from previous reports that giants abandon their camp shortly after concluding their hunting expeditions. Following the giant's tracks backward would allow us to gain further insights on the matter. Even discovering the location of their last village and verifying whether it's inhabited or not would be extremely useful."
Gerber looked at him in the eyes with the gaze he always had when he attempted to challenge his authority. He had to struggle to not distort his face in disgust whenever he saw that annoying look.
"I hence suggest we hire professional hunter who are expert in stealthy movement and following tracks, make them find the village for us while we maintain the current deployment of our forces and have them report their findings."
You could count on one hand the things he hated more than the smug Gerber had on his face when he proposed something he knew he wouldn't approve; but his right to veto applied only to matters concerning direct interaction with the dragon lord, so he had to be patient and block it the usual way.
"All in favor to proceed with lord Sharlev's proposal. Raise hand."
His hand was the first to be added to the list, immediately followed by lord Sharlev's; it was understandable why the commander of their armed forces would oppose relying on hired hunters rather than the troops he trained. Lord Dubrov joined them shortly after, the best puppet one could buy.
"All in favor to proceed with lord Nehim's proposal. Raise hand."
Agreeing with his own idea, Gerber put his open hand in the air. Even if fully aware of the futility of the act lord Broscov did the same. Personally, he was unsure whether it was his honest opinion or if he did it just because his granddaughter would soon marry the Nehim heir. Either way, the end result was the one he wanted. He couldn't help but to show a glimmer of joy as he made the outcome official.
"Lord Sharlev's proposal is approved three to two. He is authorized to proceed as detailed to reorganize our defenses."
As unpleasant as it was to work together with lord Nehim, he always felt a considerable amount of satisfaction in rejecting his proposals using council vote. The awareness he could have everything he desired approved or rejected made collaboration with his hated rival almost enjoyable, even if only from a very specific point of view.
Having finally settled the last item on his list, the concluded the day announcing the end of the meeting.
"Very well my lords. As dusk is near and there is nothing left requiring our attention, I believe it is now time to conclude our meeting."
Seeing no one attempting to add anything to his statement or visibly against it, he pronounced the usual formula to officially conclude the meeting.
"The council is now closed."
Waiting for those words, the men sitting in the room stood up and headed toward the exit; some considerably faster than others.
He instead remained where he was, observing the head nobles leaving the room one after the other. First lords Dubrov and Sharlev, both eager to return to their respective activities; though their natures couldn't be more different. Lord Broscov was third, his old body couldn't move any faster than that.
He waited for the last lord to be about to cross the door before calling him.
"Lord Nehim, may I have a word?"
Stopping right where he was, Gerber waited by the door for him to stand up and arrive. He chose to take his sweet time to do so.
Once the only two people left in the room stood one in front of the other, lord Nehim spoke to him.
"Lord Ancool, is there something I can do for you?"
That's lord governor you imbecile.
"Yes actually."
He put his hand on the other lord's shoulder and shortened the distance between his mouth and Gerber's ear.
"Stop embarrassing yourself."
His voice was but a whisper, barely audible yet extremely cruel.
"What were you hoping to achieve with that ridiculous suggestion? Hiring hunters to hide in the forest rather than relying on our militia? Did you honestly thought your opinion could have any worth? How could you even think your words would have more impact than a war hero's? Let me give you a small lesson of strategy…"
Lord Ancool patted Gerber on the shoulder with a mocking smile on his lips.
"Wars aren't won hiding in the shadows."
Without giving him time to answer in any way, he left the room and headed toward the chambers reserved to him.
Ulovale's lord governor was a position granting many privileges to the one holding it. Being able to live in the chambers above the council's room wasn't as profitable as the right to a tenth of the council owned fields or complete tax exemption, but nothing proved the power of his station like living in the same building where all of the political decisions were taken.
Obister Vaf Ancool had once been a lucky man. Though in his life he hadn't been any more or less lucky than anyone else, he had once been in the right place at the right time; through correct decisions he even managed to make the most out of it.
Fourteen years ago two unforeseen events occurred one shortly after the other. The first was his election as the city's Governor, result of the position originally rotating from one family head to the other on a yearly basis and his father perishing of old age when his family's turn was close. The second was the large-scale assault of the combined giant tribes when the city's defense was his responsibility.
In recorded history there had been only one time when all the five giant tribes had united as one against Ulovale, the great giant's assault.
Over one hundred and twenty giants had assaulted the city all at once, throwing five volleys of boulders that opened a one hundred meters wide breach in the outer wall. They flooded in the lower ring and turned a large section of the city in a living hell.
While thousands were dying, his position forced him to lead the defense forces from a safe location. For the two hours the siege lasted, he had the duty to direct the nobles' troops in defense of the city, two hours where he had power over life and death on everyone.
His political opponents were made to lead the vanguard while his allies had the rearguard. Anyone fighting an army of giants would have no chance of surviving for more than a couple of minutes. Swords had no way to penetrate padded armor over a palm thick, and they had already spread in a large area of the city. He could only chose in what order the nobles had to die.
When the dragon lord arrived the giants retreated immediately. Humans had been paying him tributes from before they developed written language; giants instead had never earned his protection. Obister never deluded himself in thinking the dragon would actually protect them, but he knew humans would be ignored while giants would be hunted down and devoured.
When the siege was over all the family heads opposing him had died, all his allies owed him their lives and the city knew him as the one who lead them to victory when the giant's army attacked. He was named governor for life by popular acclamation and from that point on his life had been following the easy road.
Of the seven noble families existing back then, two of the ones whose head was killed were also without male heirs. Using his position and fame to marry into the stronger of the two had been easy, and he pulled some strings for the now glorious lord Sharlev to do the same with the other.
His life from that day on had been devoted to gather as much power as humanly imaginable in his hands, and the rich hallways he was walking through were testament of everything he achieved.
In his perfect life there was but a single stain, a walking talking stain he had to work with; a stain people referred to as lord Gerber El Nehim.
If his life's work was to gather all the power in his hands, Gerber's seemed to be fracturing it in as many little pieces as possible. He couldn't even fathom why he was putting so much effort in destroying everything he had built. If all the power was already in the hands of a few individuals, why not just give it all to the one already wielding the most?
He was nothing but a bug crawling in his house, an annoying fly that you just can't drive away. He wasn't even the only one in his family to be more insect than human; his son was as much as a cockroach as he was. How in the world had he survived the poison?
Twenty gold pieces to smuggle a single black cobra's flower in the inner ring, thirty to have an alchemist extract and refine the poison for an entire month, fifty to bribe a Nehim's maid in sneaking the extract in his water, ten to have an assassin close both mouths, a week for the symptoms to show, two months for it to reach the final stages and it had all been for nothing.
He paid a fortune to get rid on his rival's heir, several more times that amount to prevent him from getting a cure and the little bastard was still alive.
Before having him silenced, the alchemist had said diluting the extract would slow down the effects, but he had made adamantly clear that once injected the only outcome could be death. Then the other day, out of nowhere, he just saw the brat training his swordsmanship in the Nehim Mansion's gardens; healthier than anyone can ever hope to be.
Just… How?
Obister reached a door guarded by two armed men. He didn't want to even think about the capital he lost in this affair. Spending another night with his last investment would at least give him the feeling his gold wasn't entirely wasted.
As the guards opened the door for him, he gave them their orders for the night.
"Don't let anyone disturb me until the sun rises."
He then entered, the door closed at his shoulders.
The lord governor looked at his surroundings.
The room he was in was lavishly decorated, with an enormous bed in the middle and mirrors adorning the walls. There weren't however neither windows nor any other kind of opening toward the outside. He had them all walled up to prevent any possibility of the most expensive investment he had ever made to ever leave the room. No one but him was allowed inside.
Laid down on the bed, chained at her wrists to make sure nothing undesirable could happen, a young blond-haired girl was sleeping. She had a slender body and her height was slightly below average; his servants kept her hairs short, but she was still very attractive. The clothes he bough her in had been thrown away and replaced with more refined ones, though the style was equally exciting. He never managed to get her name in his head, but it wasn't really important.
"Cleric."
The girl slowly opened her eyes, though she didn't look at anything in particular; her body didn't even move beyond that.
She wasn't as attractive as his wife, but with what he paid to get her he would use his slave in any way he could. And besides, certain things could be done only to a slave.
His consort on the other hand seemed to somehow not be too eager to produce an heir to continue his family name.
Looking at his body in one of the mirrors he struggled to deny there was some amount of legitimacy behind her behavior. An abundant decade of banquets had its toll on him. Egg-shaped, obese and incredibly fat were the terms his spies reported the ill-tongued plebeians were using to describe him. Personally, he didn't cared. His body was the direct outcome of his wealth and power; he could only take pride in it.
Before getting started with the night entertainment, he searched his pocket for the small key he always carried with him. He hadn't allowed for copies to be made, the one he carried was the only one whose existence he permitted.
With the key in his hand, he opened an extremely sturdy-looking metal crate. In it, half a dozen bottles of wine were carefully stored. They were nothing that could be acquired within the dragon lord's territory; he regularly hired mercenaries to get him those bottles from another dragon's land. Each of them was worth more than its weight in gold, so he kept them more closely guarded than he did with his actual treasures. It was an unbelievably expensive indulgence, but what good was power if one couldn't use it for pleasure?
He grabbed a still sealed bottle and maneuvered for a while to remove the cork.
After finally opening the sealed bottle and pouring its crimson content in a cup, he took a sip and let the aroma rest in his palate.
Delightful.
Obister then removed his light coat, the jewelry around his neck, his shirt and kept undressing while savoring the refined aroma. When he had nothing on him but his pants he looked in the mirror. After admiring his figure for a long moment, he glimpsed at the reflection of the cleric slave. She had yet to move a finger to undress.
He left his mirror to reach the bed. He had already made plans for the evening, and she would assist him whether she liked it or not.
The partially undressed lord then stopped after taking a single step. There was something weird with the room.
He looked around to see whether something was out of place, but as he did so a terrible headache assaulted him.
Obister felt the temperature in the room rising and his throat went dry. He moved toward the wine-filled cup he left on the nearby table, but his steps were unsteady.
He sat on a chair ignoring its creaks. His head was spinning. He didn't felt well.
The lord governor grabbed the cup and realized he was sweating visibly. To quell the thirst he swallowed his priceless high-class wine in a single sip, without even paying attention to the flavor he used to savor at every drop.
Before the precious liquid contained in the cup could slip down his throat in its entirety, the cup fell from his hand. Trying his best to ignore the crimson treasure spilled on the floor, he immediately looked at his hand. He raised it in front of him, trying to keep it as still as he could, but it was shaking so much he didn't even seemed to be trying.
In front of him, the cleric slave had moved her head. When his cup had fallen on the ground it must have attracted her attention. She was now sitting on the bed, blankly looking in his general direction.
He invested a fortune to buy a remedy to all afflictions; he would use it.
The lord governor stood up, or at least he tired with all his strength. He couldn't even leave the chair.
"Hey!"
She didn't react.
"Hey, slave!"
Still nothing.
"Hey, slave girl! I'm talking to you. Oi! Cleric!"
Her head moved; he had gotten through her.
"Come here."
No response.
"Cleric! Oi! Cleric!"
Her eyes moved. She was looking toward him, though there was no focus in them.
"Hey, slave cleric. I'm feeling bad. Get your ass here and do something useful for once!"
Her eyes were slowly gaining focus.
"Hurry! It hurts. I can't move. Come here and cure your master! Cleric!"
She looked at him. Obister had finally managed to get her attention.
"Slave. Come here now!"
She was observing him, but her body was as still as a stone.
"Come here and save me woman. What? Do you want your master to die?"
Her body was immobile. Her eyes were on him. His shouts this time however managed to produce a reaction, even if nearly imperceptible. One corner of her mouth slightly moved upward.
His stomach was hurting to unbearable levels, his vision getting foggier.
He had enough of that.
"Guards!"
He shouted with all his strength.
"Guards! Come inside."
His throat felt on fire, but he screamed with all the air in his lungs.
"Guards! I'm dying! This bitch isn't moving a fucking finger! Come in and beat her!"
It was getting harder and harder to breath.
"Guards! Guards! Guards!"
Obister was wheezing, his body was covered in sweat, he felt like if the room was on fire, his head was spinning incessantly, but no response came from the other side of the door.
Before he could shout once more, an unbelievable pain surged in his chest. He screamed in agony, the stabbing pain wasn't getting any weaker.
He exerted all his strength to look at the point where the pain was coming from.
In that moment, the world stopped. His heart skipped a beat, the immense heat he felt vanished, replaced by freezing cold. The primordial fear all humans would eventually face had come for him.
Death.
On his chest, right over his heart, there was a small black dot roughly the size of a thumbnail. He would never mistake it for anything else.
Extract of Black cobra flower.
When? Where? How?
He looked at the cup of spilled wine on the floor.
"Impossible. There's no…"
Pain surged once more in his body, impeding him to finish the sentence. Speaking even a single word was as painful as getting stabbed by a knife.
He looked back at the bed. His slave was still sitting there. Watching.
"Slave!"
That single word caused him unbelievable pain.
"Get here."
His tone was getting lower. His voice would vanish shortly. He tired to raise a hand toward her, but he could no longer move his body.
Then, when all was lost, hope. The cleric girl stood up from the bed, looking at him in the eyes. She walked toward him, dragging her chain through the room.
He was saved. She brought her restrained palms close to his chest, right over where the black stain was. Obister knew the process necessary to heal with the power of the gods. Next she would say the incantation and he would be as good as new.
"What's my name?"
What?
Her eyes were as cold as ice. The vacant broken expression on her face had been replaced with one of absolute seriousness.
Why now of all times?
The pain suddenly got more intense. The stain on his chest was now the size of a palm.
"I'm poisoned."
It was meant to be a shout, it came out as a whisper.
Her face remained the same.
"What. Is. My. Name?"
Fuck.
"A… Alitre?"
She stared coldly at him.
"That sounded like a question."
He tried to swallow, but the saliva going down his throat felt like broken glasses.
"Alitre."
Her face got closer.
"Alitre what?"
The stain ached once more. It was now the diameter of a span.
"Arghhh!"
Her face was as still as a mask. Obister's scream of pain couldn't reach her even on his deathbed. Wheezing, he attempted his best to recall her surname. He had heard of it only once, it was something like…
"Feli. Alitre Feli."
Her expression finally changed. Her lips curved in a smile.
She moved her hands back toward his bare chest, positioned them over the black stain quickly devouring his body and pushed with all her strength.
"Not even close!"
He fell from the chair hearing that scream. His body was weakened to the point he couldn't even move his head. He could do nothing but whisper in pain.
Then, a new pain surged in his body. It came from between his legs.
"I'm Jane! Jane Gueli! Got it, you pig? Jane!"
She had started kicking him. She was putting so much strength in each blow that she was constantly a step away from loosing her balance.
"Say it, you swine! Say it!"
The guards stationed just outside the door didn't came even as she screamed in rage.
He tried with all his might to pronounce her name, but his mandible wasn't moving.
The stain was now covering the entirety of his chest, doing in minutes what should have took months. He was on the floor, in his pants, paralyzed, poisoned, in pain and repeatedly kicked by his own slave. He just couldn't bring himself to appreciate the irony of dying while being beaten by the person he bought for the ability to save lives.
Then, when all seemed lost, somehow, it got even worse.
The cup of wine he had dropped on the ground had something wrong with it. At first he assumed it was the poison twisting his senses, but it almost seemed as though its shadow had moved.
Mere moments later, he realized it wasn't a misperception caused by the substance killing him at unnaturally quick speed. The shadow was actually getting larger and larger; then it rose from the floor and silently grew in the air until becoming a tall pitch-black pillar of darkness in which no light existed.
Jane kept kicking without realizing what was happening behind her. Then, maybe realizing he was no longer looking at her, maybe somehow feeling something was wrong, she stopped venting her suppressed anger on him and looked back.
She fell on the ground, the shock of what she saw making her loose balance. She then uncoordinatedly crawled in the furthest corner of the room, almost stumbling in her chain at every step. There was more fear in her eyes now than he ever saw before.
Then, as if reacting to Jane's escape to the furthest away allowed by the chain, something white with a silvery jewel appeared close to the darkness' top. Was it a face? No. It was more like a mask. A blank featureless mask, like if it was put there just to suggest where to look at. It took him moment to realize it wasn't an object that stood in the middle of the room, but rather a being.
His instinct told him the shadow-like existence standing in front of him was unfathomably dangerous. The fear it inspired in him with his very presence was even superior to the one he felt realizing death was coming for him. Like if something within him was saying that death was a better alternative than facing the shadow.
The amalgamation of darkness moved his mask toward him. Obister was being observed by the living shadow that hid below the mask. As he was being watched by that monstrous presence, the pain vanished. The fear he felt was so great that it completely overshadowed the pain caused by the black stain now encasing his torso.
After a few seconds he felt passing slower than years, the shadow moved away from him. Even in a situation as bad as his, even if for less than a single second, he felt relief.
The presence then moved toward the corner his slave had run to. She tried her best to make herself as small as possible, crouching at the edge of the room. If the darkness behind the mask instilled so much fear in a doomed man like him, he could only try to imagine that effect his presence would have on her.
She was shaking. Shivering beyond control. Cowering with her face between her knees.
An extension of darkness shaped like a hand went toward her and touched the iron chains on her wrists. The metallic restraints fell on the marble floor without producing sound.
"Jane Gueli."
Hearing her name being called, she raised her head and fearfully looked at the presence that had just freed her.
A large man-sized disk emitting obsidian brilliance appeared in the room.
"Next time you open your eyes, you will no longer exist in the world of men."
The hand-shaped darkness moved toward her face. When it retracted she was asleep.
Grabbing her by the waist and putting her where a human would have had his shoulder, the presence headed toward the unnatural portal in the middle of the room.
When hey were right in front of it, the amalgamation of living darkness turned and looked at him through his mask one last time.
"You may take this as an example of war won hiding in the shadows."
It then crossed the gate; bringing with him the slave he had spent a fortune to buy and leaving him with those words.
As he was unable to move or speak, feeling indescribable pain in every fiber of his body, the black stain covered the entirety of his skin. Death would arrive only after several hours.
