The Game Where I Was Rank One Became Reality Chapter 68: Third Village

Novel: The Game Where I Was Rank One Became Reality Author: VedScans Updated: May 22, 2026

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Now reading: Chapter 68: Third Village from The Game Where I Was Rank One Became Reality, a Fantasy novel by VedScans.

Greymoss was not Thornfield.

Krug understood this within ten seconds of arriving. The Beastn who t him at the settlent’s outer ring — a periter of sharpened logs driven into the earth at thirty-degree angles, forming a barrier that discouraged approach without fully blocking it — were not hungry. They were not desperate. They were not waiting for a god to save them.

They were ard.

Three of them. Two males and a female. The males carried axes — crude iron, poorly balanced, but maintained with the attentiveness of people who knew their weapons were the difference between living and not. The female had a short bow with three arrows nocked loosely in her draw hand. All three wore hides. All three had the lean, scarred look of people who fought regularly and expected to fight again soon.

"Turn around," the tallest male said. No greeting. No question. A directive.

Krug stood his ground. Behind him, four Ashenveil guards held position — Lizardman veterans who’d drilled with minotaurs and cleared a dungeon and understood that the first rule of diplomacy was looking like you could win the fight you were trying to avoid.

"My na is Krug," he said. "I’m from Ashenveil. We ca to talk."

"We don’t talk to strangers."

"You’re talking to now."

The tallest male’s jaw tightened. The Beastman beside him — shorter, broader, with a scar that ran from his left ear to his chin — shifted his grip on the axe. Not a threat display. An adjustnt. The kind of micro-movent that people made when they were deciding between options and wanted their weapon ready for whichever one they chose.

"I brought tools," Krug continued. "And a healer. No soldiers beyond the four you see. If you want us gone, we leave. If you want to hear an offer, we stay."

The female lowered her bow a fraction. Not all the way. "What offer?"

"The sa one we made to Thornfield and Millhaven. Stonesteel tools. dical support. Trade access. In exchange, we ask for nothing except your attention."

"And after attention?" the tallest male asked.

"That’s up to you."

A silence stretched. Greymoss sprawled behind the palisade — a rough settlent of hide tents and timber longhouses arranged around a central fighting pit. Krug could see it from where he stood — a circular depression in the ground, packed earth stained with old blood, surrounded by log seating. The Beastn settled disputes in that pit. Leadership was determined in that pit. Status, respect, mating rights — all decided by combat.

Krug knew this because he’d read Harsk’s intelligence report. But he also knew it because it was obvious. A culture built around a fighting pit didn’t negotiate with words.

"I challenge your strongest warrior," Krug said.

The three Beastn looked at each other. The female’s bow ca up slightly, then lowered again.

"Why?" the tallest male asked.

"Because you don’t respect traders. You respect fighters. If I win, you listen to my offer. If I lose, we leave and never co back."

The tallest male studied Krug — the scarred Lizardman with the dark-tal weapon at his hip and the posture of soone who’d fought things bigger than Beastn. Not with suspicion. With appraisal. The look of a fighter evaluating another fighter.

"Renn," the tall one called over his shoulder. "Visitor wants the pit."

***

Renn was the largest Beastman Krug had ever seen.

Not the largest creature — Gorren was taller, heavier, wider. But Renn was the largest thing that moved the way Renn moved. He was built like a wall of muscle and scar tissue, a head taller than Krug, his body covered in the short, coarse fur that marked the Beastn of the northern grasslands. His weapon was a stone maul — a block of granite bound to a hardwood shaft with leather strips. Old-world weaponry. The kind of weapon that a civilization with no forge technology produced through necessity and brute engineering.

The fighting pit filled. A hundred and eighty Beastn ringed the depression, sitting on the log seats or standing along the edge. Children perched on shoulders. The elderly watched from lean-to shelters at the periter. The entire village, gathered to see a Lizardman stranger fight their champion.

Krug descended into the pit. He drew his stonesteel blade — short, heavy, balanced for close-quarters work. The tal caught the afternoon light with the dark gleam that no other alloy in this part of the world could replicate.

Renn descended from the opposite side. He planted the maul’s head in the dirt and looked at Krug the way a predator looks at sothing that hasn’t decided if it’s food yet.

No rules were stated. Krug assud there were none.

Renn moved first.

The maul ca in a lateral sweep — not overhead, not the telegraphed downward smash that an amateur would try. A horizontal stroke aid at Krug’s ribs, fast enough that the air compressed ahead of it with an audible hiss. Renn was fast. Faster than his size suggested. The kind of speed that ca from a lifeti of pit fights against opponents who learned the sa lesson Krug was learning now: the first swing wasn’t the setup. It was the kill shot.

Krug stepped inside.

Not back. Inside. Toward the swing, under the arc, closing the distance between them to the point where the maul’s length beca a liability instead of an advantage. The stonesteel blade ca up — not as a strike, but as a guard. He caught the maul’s shaft on the flat of his blade and felt the impact through his arm, his shoulder, his spine.

Reinforce.

The skill activated through muscle mory. The Acolyte of the Forge class skill — imbuing an object with durability and weight proportional to conviction. The blade hardened in his grip. The weight shifted, the tal becoming denser, the edge becoming sothing that existed between a physical tool and an expression of will. Krug had been Fanatic since the first month. His conviction, in this mont, was not complicated. He believed that his god watched. He believed that his blade was more than tal. He believed those things without doubt or qualification.

The blade held.

Renn grunted. He pulled back, reset, swung again — this ti overhead, a power stroke that would have driven Krug into the earth if it connected. Krug sidestepped. The maul hit the ground where he’d been standing and embedded three inches into packed earth.

Before Renn could pull it free, Krug closed.

The stonesteel blade pressed against Renn’s throat. Not cutting. Touching. The edge resting against the pulse point below the jaw, held with the careful control of a fighter who could have pushed harder and chose not to.

Renn froze. His hands were on the maul’s shaft. His eyes were on the blade at his neck.

The pit was silent. A hundred and eighty Beastn watched a Lizardman outsider hold a blade to their champion’s throat and not use it.

"I win," Krug said. "Now you listen."

He removed the blade. Stepped back. Sheathed it.

Renn pulled the maul from the earth. For a long mont, the Beastman champion stood in the center of the fighting pit looking at the Lizardman who’d just beaten him with a weapon made of tal that shouldn’t exist.

Then he sat down in the dirt. Not a surrender. An invitation. The Beastn gesture for speak — I’m listening.

Renn’s mouth twitched. Not a smile. Sothing closer to a recognition. The look of one fighter acknowledging another.

***

Krug taught them the Iron Devotion.

Not all of them. The children didn’t participate — they watched from the pit’s edge with wide eyes. The elderly sat in their shelters and observed. So of the warriors refused outright, standing at the periter with folded arms and closed expressions. That was fine. Krug had been told to expect resistance. Beastn didn’t convert to foreign gods on the strength of a single fight.

But sixty of them knelt. The ones who’d seen the blade at Renn’s throat. The ones who’d felt the weight of Krug’s weapon and understood, instinctively, that the tal was different. That the strength behind it was different.

"Right knee," Krug said, demonstrating. He knelt in the packed earth of the fighting pit, the dried blood of a hundred previous fights beneath his knee. It felt appropriate. "Left fist over your heart."

They copied him. Awkwardly. Beastn had different proportions — longer arms, broader shoulders, legs that bent at slightly different angles. The posture that felt natural for a Lizardman required adjustnt for a Beastman. So of them placed the wrong knee down. So of them put their fist on the wrong side. It didn’t matter. The form could be corrected. The intent was what counted.

"Repeat after ," Krug said. "By iron and fire, I stand before the Design."

Sixty voices, rough and uncertain, echoed the words. So in Common. So in the Beastn’s own tongue, translating on the fly, stumbling over concepts that didn’t map cleanly between languages. The word Design was particularly difficult — the Beastman language had no equivalent for intentional architecture. They used the closest word they had, which was sothing like *the pattern the sky makes before a storm.*

It was close enough.

"My hands are the hamr. My will is the forge. I am shaped and I shape in return."

The second line was easier. Hamrs and forges were physical objects. Will was a concept every warrior understood. *I am shaped and I shape in return* required no explanation for people who’d spent their lives being shaped by violence and shaping it in return.

"Order above. Order within. Until the last fla dies, I am Yours."

The last line settled over the pit like ash after a fire. Not all of them said it. So mouthed the words without sound. So stopped halfway through and went quiet.

But so of them felt it.

Krug could tell because of the warmth. Not his — theirs. When a mortal’s faith connected for the first ti, there was a sensation that even non-priests could detect if they were close enough. A warmth in the chest, behind the fist, where the prayer directed attention. Not dramatic. Not a miracle. Just the faint, unmistakable sense that sothing had heard.

Three of them laughed — nervous, surprised laughter, the kind that ca from people who’d felt sothing they didn’t expect. One of them — a female warrior with a notched ear and a face built for suspicion — went dead still. She stared at her own fist over her heart with an expression that Krug recognized from his own conversion: the look of a person who’d just discovered, against their will, that they believed.

Renn didn’t kneel. He sat at the pit’s edge, stone maul across his knees, watching. Calculating. Not hostile. Not converted. Waiting. The warrior’s version of faith: I’ve seen what you can do, now show what your god can do.

Zephyr would oblige. The blessings would co — physical enhancent through the Forge domain, enhanced senses through Thyrak’s Beast domain. The Beastn would feel their bodies improve over the coming days. The skeptics would notice that the converts were faster, stronger, sharper. So would kneel then. Others would hold out longer.

It didn’t matter. The door was open.

Above, Zephyr updated the count. The system registered the new faith bonds:

[FAITH CONVERSION — Mass Event]

[Settlent: Greymoss]

[New believers: 60]

[Starting tier: Casual (all)]

[Conversion catalyst: Combat demonstration Iron Devotion ceremony]

[Unconverted population: 120 (observing)]

[TERRITORY UPDATE]

[Total Believers: 2,830]

[Thornfield: 194 | Millhaven: 146 | Greymoss: 60]

[Ashenveil Core: 2,100 | Ironhold: 330]