Tyrants of Earth - The Legend of Artigan Chapter 78 - The Truth, and consequences for hiding it

*A movent was attempted to rena the Passive Tyrant to the Aggressive Tyrant. The occasional leaks of the Tyrant in the highest sector conversing with dragonslayers have indicated her true nature.

"Do I have a Legend? Of course I do! You want to see it? Why not–oh hey Lihua!"

*The interviewing dragonslayers were later found beaten and their belongings stripped.

Ryan dodged a strike from Seffara as he tried to build up his [Aura of Self Montum]. The unfortunate problem was that he couldn’t build up any aura at all when the [Knight] shut down all of his moves.

Also he didn’t have his Epic on Earth.

Ryan was starting to understand just how much of a bonus it really gave him in The Realm. Comparatively speaking, the size of his current aura wasn’t even a fifth of the size he had when he just walked around in The Realm, and that was just considering the size alone.

[Aura Condensa-

A fist crashed into his chest as he went into the air and fell back on the ground.

“Aughagh,” Ryan ‘said’.

Seffara just shook her head, “that setup just takes too much ti, not to ntion that it seems dangerous as hell if it permanently ssed up the circulatory structure in your arm.”

They had poured a high grade healing potion on his right arm and found that it had done nothing to actually fix whatever was wrong with it. Outwardly his arm looked fine, in reality, it felt like it was constantly underwater.

That had all been that singular condensed [Aura Slash]. The cool lightning effect backlash from the [Volatile Antimagic Throw] had been fixed in The Realm with a minor potion.

Damage did track from The Realm and vice versa. It didn’t matter if technically the body on Earth was a husk, all damage would follow you whenever you used dinsional hopping skills.

His arm was sothing to pester Gamielle about… later. His current exhaustion was bone deep. Hell, tricking that stupid bird long enough to use [Return To Earth] took nearly half a day on its own.

Ryan laid face down in the grass as Seffara walked to his side and picked up his soulsword from his grip. His arm wasn’t the only thing that had broken under the pressure of his aura. Most of it had fully condensed around the blade and it had shattered the blade part in half.

Seffara put a finger across the side of the broken blade and whistled.

“I can’t believe a rookie like you was able to shatter a scaling soulbound weapon.”

“Dnks.”

Ryan still had his face to the ground. The earth was comfortable, it didn’t like to hit him except for the tis he fell on it. Then at least it was a mutual hit.

“This’ll fix itself when you reach the next realm. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I know.”

He put his head to the side. Still annoyed over his arm. Healing potions didn’t actually heal everything, things like skill overuse and pushing your resources to the limit were on the list of things that couldn’t easily be fixed.

Seffara clicked her tongue, annoyed at his response.

“What you should be worried about is the infusion of aura in this. It’s probably going to mutate when it repairs.”

Ryan suddenly completely forgot about his fatigue as he sat up straight and and stared at the sword in Seffara’s hands, he recalled it without warning and inspected it.

Broken Sword (Soul-bound, R3, Max R8)

Enchantnts : [Minor Sharpness] (Broken) [Minor Durability] (Shattered), [Minor Aura Imbue] (Broken)

This sword will grow to match the user’s realm. A high achievent score may add or mutate the sword accordingly. It has developed a core of the user’s aura within.

Note: This sword has been broken in half. Every enchantnt may exhibit worse or unexpected effects. If the poml shatters then the item will disappear and the user will receive a backlash.

Now that he looked at it more closely, the blade itself had the slightest tinge of red surrounding it. The simple poml was darker than it used to be. He hadn’t noticed it because his own aura had partly covered it. He held it up to the sky, a stupid grin on his face.

Seffara rolled her eyes.

“Don’t be so happy, item mutations are like forced realm evolutions. They always co with drawbacks.”

Her comnt wasn’t enough to wipe away his smile, “still pretty good, right? I don’t think I’ve heard of soone breaking a scaling soul weapon with just their aura before. It’s too bad that there isn’t a title for it.”

“Unsatisfied with two Rare titles and an Epic title already?”

“Not like I’ll equip either of them.”

Titles were an odd part of the Trial System. Every ti a title was obtained, it would beco that much harder to obtain. Every ti a new early title was found, all the nations of Earth would start sponsoring people that were likely to get it.

There’d been a mad rush for the [Olympian] title once. Now it was practically impossible for anyone to get. Hell, there was supposed to be an Epic tier title for S Trial clears. But apparently enough people had received the title that just getting one S clear wouldn’t be enough.

These issues ant that most of the titles that one could get early were just that much harder to obtain. Ryan had done so crazy stuff, yet he only had two titles. An Epic [Rebellious] title for rejecting the Manager, which was fair enough. He doubted many people had ever told the Manager to fuck off before.

And now…

[Solo Town Conqueror] (Rare)

No matter how briefly, Lazhen, a long established settlent, was conquered by you. Use this title to continue your conquest.

Gains minor physical and taphysical bonuses when plotting against, or attacking a settlent.

It was a useless title. Lazhen had been far too close to disaster that he wasn’t willing to try that again. Not to ntion that he couldn’t equip more than one title until he hit the fifth realm.

Ryan lay down on his back and raised his broken sword to the sky. Seffara cleared her throat.

“What are you going to do now? Go straight for the next Trial?”

There was no longer any doubt in Seffara’s eyes on whether he could take on an ard Trial outpost by himself. Ryan’s soulsword reflected the light into his eyes.

“I have a few ideas but there’s little point in attacking another outpost. I need to recover first.”

Then he closed his eyes and sighed.

“And I need to tell you all sothing.”

Seffara raised a questioning eyebrow. Ryan just flopped back to looking at the sky.

“Maybe over dinner, I’d really like one of your burgers.”

–

Clara was humming while she helped Ryan set the table. Milock, as usual, let his coworkers do most of the work when he could. Barry was also sitting by the table, eyes closed in ‘ditation’. She was pretty sure that was bullshit too but she wouldn’t call it out. Clara was in a good mood, it looked like Ryan was right about Lazhen having been worth it. The Witch Tyrant looked like she’d broken her own solitude over it too.

Seffara ca into the newly furnished dining room with a tray of piping hot burgers. Clara was quite happy to try them again now that she had stopped working at a Manaburger.

Ryan grabbed them the mont they landed on the table. He showed such startling speed and started eating at speeds she’d be concerned about but she ignored it, it was still disconcerting to see him show his superhuman side so casually. Clara shrugged then went to grab her own burger.

Then Seffara turned on the silence bubble and she froze. Seffara looked at Ryan questioningly but he ignored the looks and continued eating.

It was never a good sign when the silence bubble ca up.

Ryan groaned as he finished one of the burgers, “still one of the best burgers I’ve ever had.”

“Damn right, I’ve had decades to work on it.”

The [Rogue] raised an eyebrow, looked at the patty, and raised an eyebrow at Seffara.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“What kind of mince is the patty?”

The heroine didn’t miss a beat, “beef with a little blend of pork.”

Ryan gave a doubtful look at Seffara. He got a glare in return.

Seffara stood up, “If you don’t like it then I can take it back.”

“No, I’m sorry.”

He quickly snatched another burger and shoveled the entire thing into his mouth. Seffara glared as he chewed the burger down at superhuman speeds. The whole table was staring at him.

At this point she’d guess even Milo had picked up on Ryan trying too hard to be casual. Clara looked over and realized she was wrong, Milock was happily shoving down his own burger, not caring about the conversation at all.

Clara couldn’t handle it. At this point Ryan had his cheeks stuffed with a burger chewing like a hypersonic hamster.

“Okay Ryan, what did you want to tell us about?”

Ryan put up a finger as he swallowed, beat his chest, then took a drink of lemonade. He gulped.

“Well, uh, I’ve been trying to find an opportunity to tell you all this but… I only have one life left. I lost my safety life a while ago.”

“WHAT?!”

She didn’t realize she had stood up.

Milock just froze mid-bite and blinked at Ryan. Barry raised an eyebrow, looking for any hint of a lie, then he nodded like it made sense. Seffara tensed and untensed without anyone noticing. Ryan was sweeping his eyes at their reactions, then he nervously took a drink.

Clara refused to believe it.

“What do you an when you have one-”

“Explain.”

Seffara cut through Clara’s denial.

Ryan looked at the glass of light yellow liquid, it sparkled a little. Clara wondered how she had thought the drink was ever a regular lemonade. He sighed.

“The Manager fucked over, he brought in when I got shot and waited until my body was dead. The Trial System apparently considered myself to be a floating soul. I didn’t even know that was a thing.”

Clara couldn’t handle it. She started shouting.

“You’ve been doing all this insane stuff with just one life? Are you crazy?”

He almost looked surprised that she was yelling at him. Clara wanted to rip her hair out and strangle him. Was he out of his mind?

“I’m sorry I should have told you all sooner.”

That was what he had a problem with? Clara opened her mouth to start shouting again when Barry cut in.

“I’ve never heard of soone dying in the Manager’s abode.”

“Not normally no, but he apparently has control over how much of a ti desync there is in his abode. He hadn’t desynced ti until after my body was confird dead.”

Barry nodded along like it made sense. “Then he set you up against governnt agents and put you in line to et the Witch without being able to pull out. You weren’t just being a reckless idiot, it was your only choice.”

“Yeah.”

Clara was frantic, suddenly Ryan’s stories and his brushes with death no longer felt like distant insane stories. Her friend was literally rolling the dice with his life.

“This is stupid, what the hell Ryan? I thought you were doing all this crazy stuff because you had a backup life. You can’t keep going like this.”

Clara looked to Seffara and Barry for support, her eyes went wide as she realized they weren’t in the sa line of thinking she was. There was more respect in their eyes than they’d ever given Ryan before. They were from a ti when dying then returning to fight for your country was normal.

She tore her eyes away from them to look at Milock. He was just frozen, unblinking and staring at Ryan.

He was more shocked than she was. Clara turned desperately at Barry.

“Say sothing Barry, tell him he needs to stop.”

The orc just looked at her, they had both clicked since they talked in Ryan’s hospital. She thought he understood her and she thought she understood him. Golden eyes t her green ones.

Then he tilted his head back at Ryan. Understanding but not agreeing.

“Look at him, Clara. He knows what he’s doing is dangerous. More importantly, he thinks what he’s doing is worth it. You can’t drag adventurers like him away from doing what they believe is right.”

Deep inside, the silly girl that had run away from her ho already knew that. She didn’t dare look at Ryan as she deflated onto her own chair.

Seffara sighed.

“I can respect -”

BANG!

Milock slamd his glass into the table. Seffara’s drinking glass didn’t break, nor was there a dent on the new table. Milock stared at the pristine glass and the undented table in impotent anger for a long mont. Then he stood up.

“‘Scuse .”

Ryan shuffled nervously. “Sorry Milock, I should have told you sooner.”

Milock didn’t respond or even look back as he walked away.

Ryan sank into his chair as he stared up at the ceiling.

“Well I guess there really is no easy way to tell soone you’ve been lying to them the entire ti.”

–

Milock

Milock wasn’t sure what he was angry about. He understood it, kinda. Ryan didn’t want to worry his friends, he was an idiot like that. But he always ant well. That was what was so infuriating about him. It was hard to hate Ryan while he was being an idiot because he knew Ryan always ant well.

mories flickered as he stomped down the too-nice hallway.

“Hey newbie, I saw that. If managent checks the tapes and sees you do that, you’re fired.”

“Ah shit. You’re not going to tell, right?”

“No, just put it back and hope they don’t check the tapes.”

“Nah, nothing happens in the graveyard shift and nobody’s checking the tapes when nothing’s happening. Take a patty a shift at most and it’ll be fine. But yeah, sneaking fries is definitely easier.”

Milock was thrown off by this weird newbie and his oddly planned out heist of a patty.

“Are you that desperate for food?”

The newbie gave Milock a grin.

“Just sothing that’s worth the risk.”

It wasn’t until later Milock found out that Ryan had been stealing food to drop it in front of holess people. He’d wear a different hoodie or cap and just drop it off while they were sleeping or not paying attention.

Milock rembered asking him why this newbie weirdo was doing what he was doing. It was the dumbest fucking answer he’d ever heard of.

“I dunno, I’m just not used to seeing holess people.”

Milock wasn’t even sure why he was rembering this now. He wanted to hit Ryan for keeping such a big secret but what would even be the point? Even if Milock could hurt his friend he’d just feel bad about it later. Underneath all the brilliant petty plotting Ryan was…

a stupid fucking idiot. He always was and always will be.

In the end Ryan had stopped bothering stealing food for the poor. Apathy and soul crushing work got everyone in the end.

That was normal, that made sense to Milock.

He slamd open the door to the room Seffara had given him. The damned heroine of Sapphire had told him that he could stay here anyti he wanted. Milock wasn’t like Ryan, he never believed in a free lunch. Milock knew that the invitation to stay at Seffara’s farm only lasted for as long as Ryan stayed here.

Milock stomped over to the too-fancy table, Seffara’s brand new laptop staring at him. Then he felt for a small thumbdrive he kept in his back pocket.

He plugged it in.

This was the real gift the [Secretary] had given him, a secret hidden from the others. It had been opened once before Milock promptly turned it off. He had talked to Clara about how he could go to university at any ti when Ryan lost his first life.

Well fat chance of that.

If Milock committed to this then there’d be no going back.

The thumbdrive demanded a password. He typed it in.

Icarus73%*

The files that were on it were titled:

Influencing internet discussions

Step by step analysis on discourse - Swaying the Perception on the Tyrants

Internet security and organization

Basics to advanced Realmcoin transaction tracking

Corporations poised for penetration into The Realm

Most promising fourth realm adventurers

Most promising eighth and ninth realm adventurers

Fake verified adventuring accounts

Guild’s official deathlog

True Deathlog

The files went on and on, so files put a chill down his spine. What the fuck was the difference between Adventurer deathlog and the true deathlog? How much chaos would be created if he posted these online?

Now that was one quick way to get fallenangeled.

None of these folders could actually be opened. It was a screen shown only to entice, like a pandora’s box that gave a sneak peek into the horrifying secrets within.

A second security screen popped up.

A contract. Despite what his friends thought of him, Milock wasn’t stupid. He knew the [Secretary] had other plans when she ca to him with the first fake contract.

They just didn’t know that she’d been upfront about it to him.

This was the real contract, freely given. It was a single paged docunt that specified what he could and couldn’t do with the information in the USB drive. It promised him more support if he proved himself. It even told Milock that he could tell his friends that he was learning from the Secretary, though not show them the contents within.

It had two other stipulations:

Milock would owe ten percent of whatever he had earned from now on. Claimable at any ti and done in good faith.Milock would owe one favor given at any ti. This must be reasonable and will not be seriously detrintal to the signee and their friends and family.

Milock hesitated, then turned around. Nobody had co to check up on him nor did they suspect he had sothing like this. The contract was a single button, he just needed to click accept and there’d be no going back.

For so reason Milock rembered the glass he couldn’t break, and Ryan’s stupid fucking guilty face.

He clicked accept.

–

In Sector Two, Ulverra

Ella Maizel, the Tyrants’ Secretary was relaxing in her own abode. A penthouse in Ulverra. She was celebrating, it looked like the Witch Tyrant hadn’t chosen the path of chaos and strife. Ella had been building rapport with the other Tyrants while shuffling assets around, preparing for when all hell would break loose. The [Secretary] had even started checking her own ergency asures when the Witch finally responded in the interview.

Whatever the little brute had done, it had been enough to delay the Witch’s madness.

An alert went off on her contract skill. She frowned when the vague broken connection ca from her computer.

Skills underneath the Legendary tier weren’t able to cross dinsions. As Ella understood it, even Legends weren’t quite capable of piercing dinsions. It had taken ti and constant practice, but she was perhaps the only person in either world to be able to utilize a skill to do so.

[Verified Contract]

The realmnet backbone, fibre optic pipes that went through the system portals carried packets of data that simply transmitted information that a contract, her contract, was indeed accepted.

Ella sighed in content, “Ah, finally.”

Pinkie raised her head that had been draped over Ella’s chest.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

The pink maned dragonslayer gave her an adorable pout. Though, to most people, Pinkie’s true form was anything but adorable. A hulking scaled monstrosity pouted, spines flashing an electric pink.

Ella waved a finger at Pinkie the half-dragon dragonslayer.

“Uh-uh, business is business and pleasure is pleasure.”

Pinkie’s pout turned into a scowl. Her sharp pointy teeth sparking in a flash of annoyance.

“I’ll take that finger, shove it up your ass then drag you out buck naked and run around Sector Two.”

Ella rolled her eyes at the petty threat, “You have been hanging out with Gamielle far too much and…” the [Secretary] leaned closer and whispered into Pinkie’s earhole, “Who says I wouldn’t enjoy that?”

The pink maned dragonslayer hesitated for a second. Ella’s eyes didn’t hesitate, letting a bit of hedonism bleed through. You couldn’t back down from Pinkie, a single mont of hesitation and she might actually do as threatened.

The much more innocent Pinkie backed out first.

“You fuckin perv.”

The very oddly hulking scaled Pinkie spat sparks in disgust and jumped out of bed. Ella admired the view for a mont then pulled sothing out of thin air. She chucked a brass object at the nude dragonslayer.

Pinkie grabbed it and blinked.

“My end of the bargain, for ignoring Ryan’s calls. You may do what you wish now.”

Pinkie, still a bit peeved, waggled her very neon pink eyebrows at the [Secretary], “Anything?”

Ella didn’t even pause.

“I guess he does deserve a reward for not sending The Realm into a [teor Swarm]. Feel free to be that reward.”

“Hmph.”

Pinkie ghosted into the floor below her penthouse. Glaring at the [Secretary] while doing it, Ella hoped Pinkie would be discreet or she was going to have to write up new contracts to keep her employees in the levels below silent.

Ella sighed. She knew the pink dragonslayer wanted more in their relationship. Personally, Ella wanted to keep it casual.

She learned from the Witch Tyrant first hand that personal relationships were a weakness.

Just like how Ella now had an undeniable exploit into what was one of the most powerful third realm adventurers in history. One that had the personal attention of the most dangerous Tyrant in The Realm.

She had expected little Milock to accept her contract earlier. The miscalculation didn’t bother her too much, caution was good for soone like him… soone like her.

The [Secretary] saw in the young man what she saw in a younger version of herself. An ordinary person scrambling in the dark, trying to figure out what they could contribute while being in the presence of giants.

Unlike her however, little Milock had soone to guide him.

And guide him she would.