There were no words to describe Duchess Rudalia’s current feelings. Pure unadulterated rage did not have enough venom in it to describe what what was going through her veins. She had gone past seeing flashes of red and was starting to see spots of white in her vision.
She didn’t even know that was possible. Especially at her level of advancent.
But she couldn’t look away. She had to wait, wait until this cursed, wretched elf left her castle so she could go out and burn the paintings. Nobody else would lay their eyes on her defaced portraits. She would kill anyone that so much as glanced at them.
She just had the scrying orb angled so that she couldn’t see her paintings directly. Just the budding ‘artist’s’ bodies.
The elf then cracked his neck, and said sothing else.
“The na’s Artigan by the way.”
He looked around the hallway, when his eyes flickered over where the scrying spell was, her heart skipped a beat. Then his eyes imdiately locked onto it.
What?
Artigan stared right at her, as if he could see right through her scrying spell. He grinned, teeth hungry for her delicate flesh, a monster of death ash and war. Her throat went dry as she slled copper in the air.
Was this aura? Is it hitting through the scrying spell?
He turned away from the scrying spell, facing one of the walls, careful not to disturb the paintings. Then he punched through, destroying the stone walls of her castle and ending up in an entirely different room. He walked on through, the demon teen trailing behind him, confused and a little scared.
Artigan marched to the other side of the room and then punched through once again.
It was only then that Duchess Rudalia realized Artigan was going directly towards her.
Her face instantly went pale. How? Was all of that a ruse? Had he been deciphering her scrying spell the entire ti? No, that was impossible, even if he had been she would have noticed. Not even the greatest of the kingdom’s mages could trace her scrying spell without her noticing.
There was absolutely no way that a primitive elf that constantly leaked mana would be able to work at such a level of finesse.
Yet here it was, Artigan had found out where she was.
And he was taking the direct route towards her.
Duchess Rudalia didn’t even worry about putting on her shoes, she threw open her panic room doors and sprinted out. When she passed a window, she flung it open and threw out her scrying orb, using a magical hand to make it fly as far as possible away from her.
A very close thud echoed out from behind her.
Other sounds started to fill her ears as well. Her own heartbeat, her own panicked breathing, the steps that Artigan was making.
They all echoed loudly in her ears.
She sprinted, her mana coursing through her veins, wishing she had learned more than the basic boosting spells. She entered one of the more hidden tunnels and sprinted through, the stone door closing behind her, spells used to clean and hide all traces of use.
She sprinted down one of her major escape tunnels, the musty unlit passageway marring her delicate feet.
She didn’t even dare cast another spell in case he could track her through it sohow.
Then a crash echoed out behind her. The mad silver-haired elf blurring up to catch up to her.
How?
It was like he had been toying with her from the very start. Rudalia raised her hands, fear gripping her heart, knowing her spells would do nothing to stop this great beast from tearing into her.
Duchess Rudalia would not go out like a common peasant fleeing from a bandit.
“D-do you know who I am?! I am the Great Strategist under King Theskar, the hero of the peo–”
Artigan backhanded her across the face. She went flying into the walls as her spell fizzled out. She was so shocked by the speed at which he closed the distance she barely had the right words to say.
“Y-you hit ! You savage primitive beast!”
“No, I slapped you.” Artigan contemplated this like it was important. “Actually, you’re right. If you were a dude I would have punched you in the face. I should probably fix that.”
“Wha-”
A fist smashed into her face, shattering her nose on impact. She almost blacked out.
–
Ryan had of course held back. Agrinth was the real victim here, and it was only fair that the evil bitch would face the consequences from the aggrieved.
The kid had barely arrived while Duchess Rudalia held her nose in shock. She looked at the blood, as if it was sothing impossible to believe. Clearly she hadn’t been hit before.
Agrinth stared at the bleeding, screaming strategist of the human kingdom. The one who had routed the demons, slaughtered them and put them in chains.
He jumped on her, his fists pumling down on Duchess Rudalia.
At first Ryan had thought it was a great idea. Let Agrinth vent out his anger and frustrations at soone truly evil. It had worked for Ryan. Beating the shit out of Rax and Rick had been quite therapeutic for him. Plus, sothing was telling him that Duchess Rudalia deserved every single bit of the beating. Whether it was his class or instinct he couldn’t quite tell.
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
Twenty seconds went by before Ryan realized this wasn’t a good idea at all. Agrinth had turned completely savage, his eyes were bloodshot as he kept smashing away, his own fists breaking against the much tougher woman’s body.
Ryan grabbed the kid by his shirt and lifted him back. Agrinth was snarling, trying hard to break free, grabbing at Ryan’s arms, trying to dig his nails in. He was so gone that he wasn’t even speaking words.
Yeah… perhaps this wasn’t the wisest of Ryan’s moves.
“Okay calm yourself.”
The demon child kept snarling, then tried to bite his arm.
“I said calm down.”
The aura snapped Agrinth out of his blood fury. He suddenly looked away from Ryan in fear, only to look at the cowering Duchess before him. So of the anger rose back as he beca articulate once more.
“Let go!”
“Y-you–” the beaten Rudalia rasped. “You will regret this I–”
Ryan threw a knife at the Duchess’ head, putting her out of her misery mid-monologue. That sudden action seed to startle the kid. Ryan put the kid down and kneeled in front of Agrinth, blocking the view of the now corpse of Duchess Rudalia.
He raised a finger.
“Adventuring 301. When dealing with nobles that you know are going to stab you in the back, you either get out of dodge or kill them quick then get out of dodge got it?”
Adventuring 301 seed a little too advanced for the uncomprehending Agrinth, so Ryan elaborated further.
“I know sotis you really, really want to smash their faces in, and so of them really, really look like they need their faces rearranged. But the truth is, the worst thing for a haughty noble is to die an ignoble death in so godforsaken tunnel, killed like rats and forgotten. Giving them ti to get riled up only lets them vent their anger. Got it?”
Agrinth did not get it at all. “B-but you punched her in the face.”
“Ah, but that’s why it’s adventuring 301. It’s a little advanced and I’m still learning and making mistakes. Like letting a kid beat up a helpless woman.”
Ryan was completely regretting letting Agrinth beat the shit out of the Duchess. Instead of venting his frustrations it looked like the hate had completely poisoned the mind instead. Agrinth was shaking, wishing he could have continued to punch Duchess Rudalia until his own fists broke.
“She deserves it. Humans all deserve it.” He hissed. “They grouped all of us together, call us demons. All lies so they can take whatever they want from us.”
“Ah.”
He really couldn’t think of a better response to comfort the poor misguided kid. Then again, it wasn’t like the kid was completely wrong either. It was what Earth had done in The Realm, they conquered under false pretenses, justifying their expansion by demonizing the competition.
That hesitation perhaps lost him any chance of changing the kid’s mind. Ryan refused to say sothing stupid like ‘demons can also be monsters too’ or ‘not all humans are bad’. They would be empty words, only actual, proper action might convince soone like this.
He just reached out a hand to the kid.
“C’mon, let’s go see King Theskar.”
Agrinth stared at the hand, a steely look in his eyes. One where burning fury had forged into steely determination. Agrinth was perhaps truly realizing what Ryan was. Soone that had killed his King, soone who went around doing as he pleased and wrecked things that he didn’t like.
“You said you would fix everything. Will killing another king fix everything?”
“No. I said that because I was pissed off.” Ryan sighed, trying to find the right words. “I do have a plan but there’s no guarantee it’ll work. Adventurers aren’t really the people you call to fix things. We’re the ones you call to explore the unknown… or to slay monsters that others can’t. Like Duchess Rudalia.”
Agrinth was silent for a mont. “Was King Arctus a monster?”
“No, he wasn’t a monster.”
“Then why did you kill him?”
“That’s a little complicated.” Ryan scratched his neck, a little embarrassed at how he had made King Arctus and Fighting Fancy face off. “He had a request for and I had a request for him in return. It’s still my fault he died, but I just never really thought about what would happen to your world when he did.”
Agrinth was silent for a stretch of ti. Long enough for Duchess Rudalia’s blood to ooze towards him.
“You have got to be the worst adventurer in the world.”
—
The journey out of Rudalia’s hidden tunnel was thankfully uneventful. There was so screaming from a couple of the staff that had co this way but for the most part they all scrambled out of the way or just fainted in his presence.
When they’d gotten out of the tunnels, Ryan placed Agrinth on his back, tied him securely with the robes’ sash and started running.
It wasn’t the most comfortable of runs, Ryan had his pack fastened to his chest, Rax’s golem and spear in one arm and the broken mana cannon in his left.
When they took a break, Agrinth collapsed on the ground. His knees unable to hold him steady.
“You alright? You should have said sothing.”
“It’s fine–”
It was at that ti when the alert happened. The world froze around him as the System screen appeared in front of him.
The Highest Trial is being challenged, all system portals will be shut off until the completion or failure of the challenge. Realmti will be desynced from Earth in one minute… Desyncing complete
Trial adapting…
Objectives Completed!
The Trial System is unable to provide you with a natural conflict within the allotted tiskip that can improve your achievent score.
You will only be able to leave when the Highest Trial is completed.
Ti remaining: 23:03:10:12/UNKNOWN
Capacity 10/NULL
It was like it had waited until that mont to freeze the world. As if to remind him that this world was fake and manipulated by the Trial System to be the way it was. It was a weirdly hollow reminder. The realistic suffering of this world contrasting with an emotionless entity that governed its fate towards conflict.
The suffering and pain is real. I can’t ignore that. There are ways to make this world better and prepare them. Let’s see how much further I can get it.
Agrinth started moving as if nothing had happened.
“We can keep going. Don’t worry about .”
Ryan smiled gently and ruffled Agrinth’s hair. “Nah get so sleep. We can pick things up later.”
“While we wait here, there will be others out there that are suffering like I was.”
“Yes, and they will suffer more if we do things the wrong way.”
Agrinth was silent for a mont, then he turned bitter. “You don’t even have a plan, do you?”
“Wrong, I have hundreds of plans. So many crazy ideas that may seem completely unbelievable to you. If only I could show you the Realmnet. You’d go crazy with the number of things people have tried.”
“I don’t understand. So people have done this before?”
“Toppled kingdoms and ruined everything? Yeah, plenty of tis. Sotis it’s the royals doing it to themselves, sotis it’s just adventurers like that co in and wreck the whole place like idiots. It all cos down and starts back up.”
Agrinth was silent. Ryan saw the goosebumps on the child’s skin and took off his robes and wrapped it around him. Another couple of minutes went by as the child stared out at the darkening sky.
“Papa always did tell the world is a cycle.”
“Maybe.”
“If it’s a cycle then I see why you act like you do.”
“What do you an?”
“You do whatever you want, it doesn’t matter what you do because it all cos back to the start again, right?”
“No.”
“No?”
“The cycle is only a cycle because soone wasn’t good enough to guide it, because soone wasn’t strong or creative enough to break it. I’ve seen the cycle break free. I just need to make sure that there is no cycle .”
“Sounds impossible, even if you succeeded you wouldn’t know if you succeeded cause you’d be dead long before the cycle restarted.”
“You’re just a kid. Wait until you're at least well into your teens before you turn all nihilistic on .”
“I’m not a kid, I’m fourteen.”
“Really?” Ryan was taken aback. “Huh, and here I thought I’d taken a child in a bloody revenge streak. Guess I’m not that irresponsible after all.”
When he was certain the kid had dozed off, he made a small oath to Agrinth.
“Just you wait, I’ll show you it can be done. Your world first, then mine.”
User Comments
0 comments from readers