Novel The King of Desire aka (Saga of the lustful king)

Summary:
The seven times champion of the ROC World Cup series Fearless woke up on a strange land, drunk and confused.

The land is Escana, a place where fantasy races like dragons, elves, and dwarves.roam the surface. The land is a world where magic has been existed for over millenniums.

As Fearless arrived at Escana, the shadow of the great war loomed over the land and Fearless right in the middle of it.

A gamer, a talker, a womanizer, an actor, a magician Fearless was, never a killer, a fighter, a conqueror or a warmonger. Yet, Fearless had to be more than just who he was.to find his place and identity within the world of Escana, and to survive the great war.


Synopsis:

The Dice has been cast.
The Great Game began and the Gods laughed.

All is fair and all is foul.
The land shall be torn asunder in ruin and chaos.
The bones of the innocence shall form mountains.
Their blood will course like rivers.


The strongest shall fall like insects.
The wisest shall succumb to ignorance.
The rich and powerful shall know true suffering.

This chaos shall birth true heroes.
Their legends will rise and fall.

Strength shall be tested,
The willful shall be broken.
May your faith be your only shield.

One will rise with passionate silence.
A hedonistic man by choices not by deeds
He shall be the guardian and the despoiler.
The Final Hope, and Wretched Nightmare.

The Game Begins.

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Genre: Comedy, Tragedy, Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, Harem?
Table of Content:

Spoiler

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
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Prologue

Spoiler

Prologue:

The wet and crudely-made binding coiled around Maria’s wrists like it had a will of its own, a real sentient being, a sea serpent, but she knew it was just her imagination. Her head felt light, a drop of sweat rolled down from her square shaped chin and fell on the baking sand, soon, another one followed, disappeared within the deep valley of her rich bosoms.

How many hours has she been forced to kneel like this under this blazing sun and this scorching beach? Maira gulped to wet her parched throat. A strand of Maria’s disheveled golden hair carried by a sudden gust and came into her view. Her once glossy hair, soft and shiny, prize, as beautiful as molten gold, now badly burned and damaged, not by the sun, never the sun. It was that terrible fire. That abominable blazing inferno that devoured everything Maria has tried to build for almost a decade, her greatest creation, her fortress, her only safe haven, and treasure. Another scorching wind blew by, this time, carrying with it the occasional painful moans of two thousand men and women who were bounded, gagged and forced to kneel on this sandy beach. Maria could not care less about them, her subordinates and seadogs they were, badly burned and wounded, in a worse shape. She could not care less about them.

That hastily erected execution platform and that chopping block at the edge of her sight, she could not help but keep glancing at it. She felt terribly ill at ease, a gripping fear that she had not tasted for over a decade overwhelmed her entire body.

Suddenly the sand before Maria kicked up, a sofa has just landed from the sky. Regal red cushion with gilded crest rails and arm-tops adorned the sofa, making it looked like a throne worthy of a foreign king. Ten women in strange looking red and white costume alighted the sandy beach with birdlike gracefulness, descending from the sky with their equally strange looking broom in hands. Witches they were, these devils in white were there as well when those devils in black apprehended Maria and her seadogs, but they stood from afar, watching with their lord from above. The witches fixed the sofa’s posture, clamping its four golden legs into the sand until it looked neat and even. They lightly nodded their heads in satisfaction the moment they finished their job and quickly formed two rows on both sides of that golden throne.

And he came, the demon descended to the scorching southern beach with his deceptively delightful flirtatious laughter. If a laughter could bring forth winter and storm to this southern land, it’s this one. It was the same voice that branded within Mara’s consciousness of her defeat. This laughter was her defeat and shame.

Maria unconsciously bent her neck, nobody told her to do so but she just did. Her eyes became transfixed at her own trembling shade and the skin of her entire body crawled whilst the ten women in white stood in attention.

The sand beneath that ornate throne shifted, that’s how Maria realized that the lord of winter and storm himself has sat on his throne. The laughter suddenly stopped, only to be replaced with wet smacking sounds, reminded Maria of the sounds she heard when her seadogs kissed the whores they captured.

She dared not look up. She could only wait within that suffocating atmosphere and that sweltering heat. Eventually, those wet smacking sounds came to an end, substituted with playful giggles between lovebirds.

Maria held her breath, how could such playful giggles sound so terribly terrifying? Even though it came from him…

The long silence followed after that made Maria wanted to escape this strange place. It was as if there were a thousand of millions of red ants crawled beneath her skin at the moment. That long silence was suffocating and dreadful.

Suddenly that suspenseful silence was snapped by a deep and penetrating male voice.

“So, you are Maria the Black Storm of Skull Island? Without the Black Mast, without your Black Hand, without your crossbow, you look like a normal woman to me, albeit the most beautiful normal woman I have seen in this land.”

“Yes, my lord,” Maria replied. His voice dreaded her still. It was her trauma, shame, and defeat. She bit into the inner part of her lips as she gave her reply to mask her own clattering teeth. As if it would help, she cursed herself. Her entire body was trembling from her own cold sweats.

“Oh, it’s my Lord this time and not son of a bitch? Why the sudden change of heart?”

The voice cracked, playfully and innocently, like that of a spoiled child who has just received his favorite gift from his own parents.

“This lowly person did not know any better back then, please be merciful my lord,” Maria gritted her teeth to conquer her inner fear. Her fingernails dug into her palm to remind her that she should not falter here. As long as she kept her wit together, she could survive through this ordeal to turn things around.

“Okay, I can forgive you for that. I especially have a soft spot for beautiful women like you,”

“You are mag…”

Maria never has the chance to thank that man and used that opportunity to turn this conversation around in the direction she desired. She was cut off, he meant to cut her off, purposely.

“My dear Maria, why did you insist on picking a fight with me? Were you drunk when you made that statement?”

Ah, so it’s finally here, Maria thought. She has prepared a fitting answer to this question. And yet, the way this man asked her in his playful and frivolous made his question felt almost bizarre to her.

“No, my lord, I…”

“It’s fine. Anyone can make that kind of mistake. In fact, I do all the time. The last time I was drunk, I declared war against the Great temple and when I woke up with a horrible hangover, I was horrified to find that I have burned alive five hundred paladins and another three hundred inquisitors of the Great temple,” he cackled in a cheerful voice just like he was trying to tell a joke.

Maria could not give a reply. Her body went stiff. She would not mind if he was talking to her in a condescending manner of a captor to a captive, or threatening or mocking or sarcastic voice. It was this overwhelming playfulness and cheerfulness in his voice that made everything about him so dreadful. Everything about him felt so wrong. He felt artificial despite his playfulness and flirtatiousness. She had no idea why she felt that way about him.

“…”

Of course, Maria had heard of that rumor, that this man earned his title the Witch King by setting fire on the very headquarter of the Inquisitors and paladins, the Great temple of Sinintee on Lake Shore Isle. But she had dismissed that as some nonsense.

“I ask again. Were you drunk when you declare your intention to fight me or were you sober and awake when you make that statement?” the man readdressed the question, this time, less playful and more somber as if he was genuinely confused.

What was she thinking when she picked this fight? Why did she even think that she could win? Why did she believe that she would be safe from someone like this? Why did she pick a fight with this man? Why did she declare that she would fight such a terrifying devil? The man seemed to ask and Maria could only agree, only insane people would pick a fight with this great insanity of a demon.

“Forgive me, my lord, I was drunk,” Maria replied, not an answer she wanted to give, not a smart answer either given her situation, but what choice did she have? If she replied that she was sober, burned by the stake for sure. Would he tolerate her if she tries to change the frame of this question, picking another answer out of the yes and no she was given? No, he has cut her off twice, showing his unwillingness for her to do that. What choice did she have? None.

“It’s fine. I understand. I can’t blame you for being drunk. Shit happens when we are drunk. Suddenly, I feel like we can become friends with each other,” that mismatching playfulness returned to his voice. Maria preferred that he just outright threatened her than using this artificial voice of his.

“This lowly person would not dare,” Maria inadvertently prostrated.

“Don’t talk like that. Raise your head, my dear,”

“My lord, I would not dare,”

“Raise your head. Show me your face,” his voice carried no cheerfulness and frivolousness this time. A commanding and resolute voice befitting to that of a king compelled Maria to raise her head.

There sat a man whose appearance was the very darkness itself in this scorch of high noon. His hair was dark and long, tied into a ponytail. His hair made Maria wondered if this man was even human, only a dark elf would possess such lustrous black hair, or perhaps he came from a rare union between a man and a dark elf.

His sharpened wolfy eyes were like the very reflection of a starless night, dark and hypnotic. Those dark orbs made Maria felt like she could lose herself within their hypnotic allure just like when she stared into a moonless night sea. Chiseled jawline on a regal feline face, his face was terrifyingly beautiful for him to be a man, and yet, too handsome to be a woman. Maria had seen a real prince once, charming and allure he was, but completely pale in comparison to this man. This person was a charming prince among even the most charming princes and princesses, and yet Maria was completely terrified. His skewed lips curved into an inviting smile, never Maria has seen a smile so beautiful, something to sigh over and yet equally crawlingly terrifying.

The man wrapped himself in a strange looking tanned leathery fabric, dark and glossy just like his own hair. Intricate words of unknown language were embroidered on his left chest in golden thread, a strange symbol that resembled five hands place on each other wove just above those strange letters. These detailed embroideries were vivid and seamless like nothing else Maria has seen. His costume added a mysterious alluring substance on this princely man. In his left hand, a contrasting white-feathered fan to elegantly fan himself.

Standing next to him were two beautiful women in the red and white costume of the witches. One was as beautiful as a treasured sword of an ancient hero, adorned but sharp and deadly while the other was like a flower on a treacherous mountaintop, gentle, elegant and dignified. Even for someone who took great pride in her beauty, Maria felt insecure being in the presence of these women. They were without a doubt the most gorgeous looking women she had ever seen in her entire life. They both had a large canopy in their hand to shield that princely person from the scorch of high noon.

“You are indeed as beautiful as the rumor said, my dear. Perhaps, even more beautiful than my companions here,” he joked, and all of a sudden, his own treasured sword slapped him soundingly.

Maria forgot to breathe in that instance. She just stared at the surreal scene before her in suspenseful silence. It’s not like that woman slapped that hard… but… What did that insane woman just do? A bead of sweat rolled down Maria’s cheek.

The Witch-king turned his sight on his treasured sword, his eyes rolled in disbelief, his hand palmed where he was slapped. And suddenly, his just giggled as the rest of his witches in red and white costume broke into an infectious giggle fit. His treasured sword of a woman was the only person who could keep a straight face through that. The Witch-king pulled his treasure sword close and planted a playful kiss on her rosy lips, prompted a blushing smile on her face. The surreal scene before Maria unfolded as if it was a part of a play that was rehearsed by these actors and actresses over and over again until they were used to it.

“Now back to you, my dear Maria, I gave you the opportunity to surrender, did I not?” the man held himself back from his own giggle, fanning himself and his two ladies with his white feather fan.

“My Lord, you did,” Maria admitted.

“Twice, I had sent my envoys to give you the chance to surrender. Each time, you sent back their heads. Were you really that drunk when my men dropped off your island?” he asked, still smiling and weathering through his own incessant giggle.

“No, my lord…” Maria tried to reason and immediately, she was cut off again, however this time, the Witch-king did not make so much of a noise. The smile on his face vanished without a trace, and so did his giggle, like a handful of sand dissipated within a strong wind. That prompted Maria to rescind her answer out of instinct, “Yes, my lord.”

“You are such a bad girl, getting drunk all day long. I can forgive you for being drunk like that. I feel like you would do just fine in my company. However, those two lives that you took were my men. I could not let that crime go unpunished. My dear Maria, there is nothing I want more at this moment than put your pretty head on a stick and make an example out of that. The people of this southern continent would sing my name for a century for doing so. And even the kings and queens who you angered, they would soon send me letters and gifts to praise me for this achievement.” He declared the most dreadful thing with the most charming smile on his face. His voice was soft and sultry just like he was welcoming Maria into his own court, and yet he has just announced his attention to behead her.

Maria has finally understood what’s so terrifying about this man. It was this mismatching smile and voice he employed in this situation. Joy that was not joy and charm that was not charm. Maria stared at the man while silently gulping. Her own head and the two thousands heads of her seadogs were resting on her shoulders.

Maria, the Black Storm. She gained a notoriety for becoming a pirate lord that commanded the Black Mast- a raiding force of over two thousand pirates and regularly led them into many large raids across the eastern coastal area of the southern continent. She struck fear into the heart of every man and woman of the seven kingdoms of the southern continents, especially those who live in the coastal area.

A great many times, the kings and queens of the seven kingdoms have formed a coalition, uniting their navy forces to assault Maria and her Black Mast in their main base at the Black Skull island, not once they were anywhere near achieving it. The geography of Black Skull Island made it so that it was extremely easier to defend than assault and those who weren’t familiar with the water would have their ship sunk by the shallow shoal and natural reef that surround the island. The mist that constantly surrounded the island also played a large role to its natural defensive prowess. The entire island was a natural fortress for Maria and her pirates. The coalition tried to change their approach and decided to ambush Maria on many occasions, but she outsmarted them every time. Maria and her allies would win every time.

She was invincible. Her Black Mast was undefeatable, that was until this man whose appearance was darkness and whose voice was winter came. He came on the very night that Maria sent back the head of his messenger. Maria was completely unprepared for his attack. Her intelligence told her that he was still partying in the capital city of the Blue Moon Kingdom with his women and army.

He came with his army of witches, flying above the Black Skull Island on their brooms, and turning the island itself into a raging inferno. The shallow shoal and the reef did nothing against things that flew like birds. And the Skull fortress built out wood and stone, it did little to stop things that breathe fire like dragons.

Maria and her crews abandoned their burning fortress and ran for the beach, listening to a mysterious Saint-like voice inside their head for direction. That mysterious voice would direct Maria to avoid her fate of dying within her fiery grave. She listened to that voice, trusting it. It was the most caring, the most childlike, innocent, charming and Saint-like. There would be no way that it would backfire on her. She followed it, hoping that she could reach her boats in time and that was where she was routed.

A thousand pike-men and bowmen waited for Maria and her seadogs at the beach along with a hundred of witches hovering above the sky in their strange-looking brooms.

That Saint-like voice inside her head broke into a laughter, mocking Maria’s stupidity for trusting it.

Maria and her crew had to make their choice, to die in the flame or die at the pike or surrender, and most of them chose surrender wisely.

“So this is Fearless…” Maria bitted her lips and swallowed the frustration of her shameful defeat.

A man who dared to openly challenge the Great temple and fought for the witches. A heretic among heretics, the slayers of paladins and priests and the witch king himself. Fearless was his name, the appointed Pacifying General of Blue Moon Kingdom.

Maria has faced brave knights and nobles in battle before, she had fought against terrifying pirate lords whose faces disfigured with scars before to stand where she stood today, but none terrified her like this man. Even though, she was so sure that he would not kill her like he said. If he wanted to make an example of Maria, he would have done it by now. Maria knew she still had her uses.

“You would not kill me, wise lord,” Maria spoke adamantly. She could not afford to dawdle in his mind game.

“Oh, I would not be so sure about that,” the man smiled innocently and prompted her to continue.

“Nobody knows the water of this entire southern continent better than me. If you allow me to live, you will gain a… “

“Naval commander? I have already had one. Why and how do you think that I have succeeded in locating your fortress and fell it this morning?” the man interrupted. His hypnotic eyes half closed. His lips curved into a wicked smile for the first time, “I have already had one excellent naval commander. I don’t need another, especially one with the level of infamy as you, my dear.”

“Wise Lord, surely you…” Maria shuddered and immediately tried to reason.

“Maria, my sweet Maria, I will let you know that I am an impatient person. Make it fast so that I can go home and have my afternoon nap,” the man once again interrupted Maria.

“My Black Mast would only listen to my command. Let me live and you will have two thousand men at your service,” Maria sweated and bit into her lips to stop her teeth from clattering. She did not expect the man to not even considering making her his naval commander. She was the woman who commanded a bunch of lowlifes uneducated foolish seadogs to outwit and outfight even the navy coalition of the seven kingdoms and yet he did not even consider adding her to his service.

"Those seadogs you mean," the man pointed his fan at the 2000 tied pirates, “I don’t need that many untrustworthy men under my belt. In fact, what I am about to do after I’m done with you is culling their numbers. I will make them fight among themselves, killing themselves and cutting their size into a number that I see fit.” The man chuckled in his frosty voice as he waved his fan, “Surely, I can’t expect to control 2000 rowdy and undisciplined seadogs by myself all at once. But, I can easily do that with a three hundred or so, don’t you think? And for the other 1700, I will put their head on a pike to appease the anger of all men and women of whom you people plundered, robbed, raped and killed.” The witch king declared, his voice was still as inviting and alluring as ever, and yet, he had declared Maria useless for his cause, sealing her fate.

A tear inadvertently rolled down her cheek when the realization that her ambition and quest for revenge has come to an end hit her. Maria relied on her tears for one more time in her life. She was aware that she looked the most beautiful when she led those tears flown. It’s a rare sight for a strong and beautiful woman like her to show weakness. When all else failed, tear is the only correct answer. There is no way that a pervert like him would not be able to feel a thing.

The man sighed unwillingly. He rose from his adorned chair and approached Maria. His witches alarmed and tried to prevent him from doing so but he casually shrugged them off, waving his fan,

“Maria, oh sweet Maria,” he gently brushed away the tears welled up in her eye corners with his thumb. His whisper gave Maria chill. Her body suddenly felt cold like she has just been tossed into the night sea of the Northern realm despite the scorch of high noon she felt until recently. Her knees went soft like jelly-fishes and she weakly crumbled into the burning sand before her, or so she thought she would but instead found herself in the cold alluring embrace of winter and darkness.

“This is your last chance,” whispered the man into Maria’s ear as he slowly combed her damaged and burned golden hair with his slim fingers, “Tell me, why else should I keep you alive?” and then he whispered sweet nothings into her ears.

His two ladies quickly dragged him back to his luxurious chair and sat him down. They admonished him and then stared at Maria with angry eyes. The man broke into a childlike laughter, playfully pulled the witches toward him and sat them down on his laps. He coltishly kissed the witches as they giggled, and flirtatiously planted a kiss on his cheeks in respond.

As Maria, she knew the answer, the man has told her. Of course, there would be no fucking way that he would kill a beautiful woman like her.

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Maria, the very Black Storm herself, she was one of the sixty-three playable warlords in the tactical role-playing war game Reign of Chaos. She can be also recruited as a vassal upon defeating her pirate group, at a great cost of raising the ire of all the seven rulers of the Southern continent of whom kingdoms she constantly raided.

Why would someone go through such trouble of recruiting her? Recruiting her meant going to war with the other six kingdoms of the Southern Continent at the same time. Why should I recruit such a character? One might ask such a question and I can only answer such question with a question of my own, “Why the fuck not?” This is no longer the game, the game has become a reality, my fucking reality whether I wanted or not.

Surely, recruiting her meant declaring war against roughly half of the kingdoms in the southern continent and her loyalty rating is atrociously low in the 30s which meant she could easily turn against you at any crucial moment. Also, despite Maria being a very capable naval commander, making the top 30 best naval commanders in a colossal roster of over 300 naval commanders in the game, there were many other characters with better stats and skills that can be recruited for that position. She was not even that smart, like seriously, what makes her think that I would spare her in the first place? Do I look like a fool who use my crotch to think instead of using my fucking brain?

Her Majesty the Queen gave me an Imperial decree to publicly execute Maria the Black Storm upon captured. She made that Imperial Decree because she understood the kind of pervert she has appointed as a general. She understood my nature better than I am.

But look at her, the gods can be damned, seeing her in real life, she was drop-dead gorgeous, a thousand times prettier than her in-game pixels rendered self. Her tan skin was glossy and soft like honey, stirring the desire to lick and savor every bit of flesh on her body. That cascaded golden hair even when disheveled and damaged by fire and ash did nothing to diminish her beauty if not erecting the perverted desire of a man to own and dominate her.

My god. It was as if a goddess had descended from the Heaven. This woman possessed a beauty that worth waging war against the world. This woman’s beauty could even contest Her Majesty the Queen’s and my own lovers’ in term of raw power.

I meant who cares if she was a psycho bitch who commanded 2000 pirates that looted, plundered, killed and terrorized an entire seven kingdoms. Who cares if she was the psycho bitch that slit the throat of her own husband in their wedding night to steal his troops? Who cares if she had a terrible personality? Who fucking cares if she would later stab me in the back or slit my throat? I’m sure that she would do that at the first chance she had. But she's worth it. L’oreal should seriously hire this woman to recast their “Because I’m worth it” commercial. Her beauty would make even the Helen of Troy in the Iliad hung her head in shame. Standing in front of such beauty, even the like of DiaoChan of the three kingdoms era would hang herself to death out of jealousy.

“My Lord, calm down and put those coins away,” that husky voice came to me in a quiet whisper. I looked at my right hand, it was indeed holding my magic coins since the gods knew when. This is bad, my longtime habit is resurfacing. I made a fist with the coins inside my right palms and reopened my fist afterward, the coins have disappeared.

“When I told you to put them away, I did not mean for you to do it in that manner, my lord. It looks freaky, I have told you many times. And I have bought you that fan for this purpose,” Louise’s admonishing voice rang inside my ears.

“My bad, old habit die hard,” I raised my white feathered fan to cover my mouth and whispered right back to Louise. She used the spell “Phantom echo” just in time to remind me to not lose my head over my own crotch. That was dangerous.

“Recompose yourself, my lord. Don’t lose yourself in your desires and make irreversible mistakes.”

“Thank you, Louise, I don’t know if I can do this without you.”

“Of course you can, my lord, you are my equal. And you can adore me later. Sir Eliot has been very discontented with your recent actions. Please, focus. This is a crucial moment.” Louise ended our short discussion like that.

Sir Eliot, the queen’s eyes who silently stood in a corner to detail my every action to the queen disapprovingly raised his eyebrows when I approached Maria, and my royal guards had to pull me away from Maria to save me from myself. Of course, I noticed his dissatisfaction. It’s just that my mind was full of Maria that I could not care less about anything else. I’m sorry for being a pervert.

Her Majesty the Queen knew my bad habit, that’s why she appointed Sir Eliot to watch me. Sir Eliot would never allow me to let Maria live because that was the queen’s decree. Maria must die.

Maria, you are most unfortunate. The moment you decided to slit the throats of my messengers, your fate has been sealed. Today, you are going to die.

“Wise Lord, please allow this humble self to live. I will forever be your slave and possession. I will be your woman, your bodyguard, your animal or whatever you desire me to be. Please spare me,” Maria prostrated flatly on the ground as she shamelessly begged for her life, exactly as I have told her.

Bang, I inadvertently hit my palm full force against the chair’s armrest and made the people around me flinched. Even Sir Eliot who stood at the corner of my vision flinched.

I gritted my teeth, clutching my feathered fan tightly to keep my composure. And it turned out that my composure was crumbling at the blinding speed as I spoke in a burst, “Are you for real? You are supposed to appeal to me, but not for your fucking life, it’s the lives of those two thousands seadogs of yours over there. You are their leader. You are supposed to plea to spare the lives of your people. If you at least that minimal amount of dignity, I could have spared you.”

“Lord, but you…”

All the testosterone in my head vanished in this single instance like a popped water balloon only to be replaced by the pure coldness of the mind.

“Maria Black Storm of Skull Island, you keep disappointing me until the very last minute. For your crime of piracy and the crimes you have committed against the people of all seven kingdoms, I sentence you to a most dishonored death. Witches, strip her and take her away. Executioner, get your blade ready,” I coldly waved my fan and a row of witches moved forward to grab Maria.

The witches immediately tore Maria’s iconic black robe into shreds and dragged her away, “My Lord, please, no…” Maria desperately begged, could do nothing against my witches.

“General, you can’t kill her here. We have to bring her back to the capital for the queen to arrange her public execution," Sir Eliot ran over and kneeled before me as he advised.

“Sir Eliot. You good sir, I am sick of this woman. She's cruel, shameless and disgusting. Public execution is too good for the like of her, that way, she would appear in another paragraph or two in the future history books. That is undeserving of her. I refuse to allow that to happen.” I waved my fan and coldly stated.

“General, Her Majesty the Queen has decreed that the Black Storm is to be escorted and publicly executed in the capital. That is the royal decree.” Sir Eliot respectfully bowed as he looked back and forth between me and Maria, “You can’t do this General. The Queen would have your head this time. Please listen to me.This woman doesn’t worth your life.”

“Sir Eliot. I’m afraid that you will report to Her Majesty the Queen of what transpires today as follow. I, General Fearless has chopped off the Black Storm’s head and put it on a stick despite the order I have received, that's it. I will not argue with you any further about this good sir.”

“But general…” Sir Eliot groaned and had that torn look as he watched Maria being dragged to her execution platform, knowing that he could do nothing to change my mind. The good Eliot was more afraid of me being killed by the Queen afterward than earning the Queen’s displeasure himself.

Maria struggled for her dear life as she was dragged away by the witches. She kept begging me, “Lord Fearless, have mercy,” struggled and struggled as the witches dragged her up to the execution platform and at one point, she won, tumbled over the platform and dragging my witches with her.

“Knock the living out of that shameless woman for me. She keeps getting on my nerve,” I ordered and the witches with their reinforced battle brooms received the order, clubbing the daylight out of Maria Black Storm. The beating went on and on, showed no sign of stopping. Only when Maria became bloody, tattered and completely immobile in a pool of blood, the witches would then resume dragging her naked body and tossing her over the chopping block.

“I will leave the remaining matters to your able hands, Sir Eliot. I find no stomach in watching how the head of such a shameless woman would roll. As for those 2000 seadogs, do with them as we have been discussed,” I rose from the chair, “You can have this chair and the canopies. It’s better for your health to work in the shade.”

“I have received my order, general. And I wholeheartedly pray that Her Majesty would not cut your head, general” Sir Eliot respectfully replied and added his concern.

“Good, I will go back to my mansion now and have my afternoon nap. Once you are done, visit me at my mansion for the report.” I walked away as soon as I finished my order.

As I walked to my carriage, I looked at the lifeless and bloody figure of Maria the Black Storm on the chopping block of which retained none of her innate unearthly beauty. I sighed languidly and never looked back at her figure again. At the edge of my vision, the executioner aligned the execution platform with a large execution blade hung over his shoulders. As I was about ten steps away from my carriage, I can hear a clear thudding sound of the execution blade hitting against the chopping block.

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“This lowly self has really thought that she was going to die,” gold was her cascading hair, honey was her skin. She dressed in the adorned white and red of the battle dress of Fearless’ royal guards, adding a mysterious allure to her curving body, turning her into a bundle of flame which men would strive to touch even if they know they would be burned to ashes. A drop of crystal rolled over her cheek and a sultry smile spread thinly on her lip as she snuggled into the unfamiliar chest of Fearless.

“Maria the shameless died today,” Fearless replied, “From now on, you are Aria, my naval battle advisor and concubine to be,” he said and wrapped his arms around the woman’s thin waist, playfully kissing on her beautiful nape and she giggled in response.

“My lord, you should have killed her, not sparing her like this,” a cold and emotionless voice resounded, making the newborn Aria flinched away with teary eyes, “I can’t believe that you could pull that off.”

Fearless turned and saw an angry girl sitting next to him. The witch battle dress she wore gave off a different vibe compared to the other woman. She looked pretty, like a doll. Her skin was pale and satin like. Her hair was gold, not the gold of molten gold like the other woman but platinum gold like that of sunlight. Her sapphire eyes reflected an azure flame of anger. And Fearless immediately tried to appease her, gently straddled her cheek with his hand, “It’s alright, Louise. The Queen is the only one person in this world who could guess why I did this. It’s fine. Her Majesty will punish me but I bet that all the kings and queens from the east coast area that this mischievous Aria has angered will write letters to appease Her Majesty and ask for my pardon,” Fearless said, stroking both Louise’s and Aria’s head at the same time.

“We will be fine,” he said, initiating a kiss on his War Doll’s lips.

“One day, you might be brought down by your lust, my lord,” the girl said her final pieces and resignedly accepted the kiss with all of her lord's affection.

The words of his War Doll spelled like a prophecy for Fearless.

Even though he understood that he could not help it, such was his nature, and such was the cursed star he was born into. The fault lied with his star, never him. Even though he knew that the newborn Aria was definitely thinking that she has won this gambit and believed that the only thing she must do for the moment was bidding her time and waited for an opportunity.

Fearless knew that she would stab him when he was most vulnerable. This woman has pulled that tricks twice with her fiancée and husband, but Fearless was neither a love-struck nobleman nor a stupid pirate. He has made a plan to train her properly after this to see just how troublesome she could be. He would be very delighted if she somehow exceeds all of his expectation, not that it would happen, Louise would see through her scheme and kill her before that. And Fearless would be very heartbroken if that happened.

He turned and sealed Aria’s lips, her eyes swimming and accepting, but he was sure that inside that head of her, she’s up to no good. If only she has learned her lesson like a good girl and if only she knew what he has planned for her in the future, Fearless secretly laughed, amused by his thought and ego.

He knew that keeping this troublemaker Aria would bring the Queen’s sword to his neck. But he got to do what he got to do. He only needs two more cards until he can turn his wishes into a reality.
.

 

Chapter 1

Spoiler

That female to male ratio though…

FY turned his head around and surveyed the funeral, really dumbfounded.

Bro, you really…

The funeral hall was packed with people. The female to male ratio of the attendances was something like 90 to 7 in FY’s eyes. The anguished black was the predominant color among the people in attendance, of course, it was a funeral. But that was not all there for FY to see.

There was the combination of a black high-class blazer and a white shirt composed the uniform of Yersin Junior College. There were also the traditional Vietnamese aodai, vests, one-piece with jacket and more, so many that it was shocking for FY.

Bro, they are like… high school girls, bro. How?

There were a dozen of girls that looked like they belonged to a same university presently in stylish black attires, sobbing and crying within each other’s arms.

“How could this happen to him? He is such a nice person,”

FY listened to the girls and sank into deep thought.

Nice? Fearless is anything but nice. A nice person would not sleep with someone’s mother or wife no matter how much that someone offend him. A nice person would not date multiple woman at the same time. FY understood that it was just a matter of perspective but in his mind, his best friend was not a nice person. He’s a great friend but he was not a nice person. Yeah, Fearless is anything but nice.

Fearless’ father was not present. He was hospitalized since yesterday when he received the grave news of his son’s death. FY has visited him but the unfortunate man was in a coma since as if refusing to accept the hideous truth. FY did not know how the old man would live the rest of his days, alone without his wife and his son. FY silently swore an oath to himself that he would take care of the old man in the place of his best friend.

There was that famous actress stood among the attendances, covering half of her tearful face with a handkerchief, her shoulders quivered uncontrollably. Behind her stood that familiar ESPORT newscaster awash in tears, her eyes fixed to the coffin. There were the ex-girlfriends and current girlfriends standing among the attendances, FY did not think they would attend this funeral, but they did, with no exception, their eyes swollen red, filled with tears. Among the weeping crowd, FY saw the city widow club with their entire membership in the attendance, crying grievously.

“Phúc, Phúc, Phúc,”

Now I think about it. That was your real name, wasn’t it bro? Of course, you didn’t use your nickname when courting with them. I have been calling you by your nickname that I almost forgot your real name.

FY stared into the portrait of his best friend that was placed above some yellow sandalwood incense at the front of the hall, the space packed with mourners. Fearless’ corpse peacefully laid inside the reinforced glass coffin with a familiar smile spreading on his lips and adornments from lilies, white roses, tulips, gladioli, and carnations.

Fearless had a princely face, chiseled jawline on a feline face, his wolf-like eyes forever closed and never opened ever again. His light tanned skin turned pallid white, devoid of life brought an unknown pain to FY’s heart.

FY suddenly remembered that one time he asked Fearless, why not become an actor, or a model and instead a pro-gamer. The guy just laughed and questioned FY if he had a chance at hitting the reset button for his life, would he still become a pro-gamer? Of course, FY replied “yes” and his best bro just chuckled.

“That’s also my answer,”

Everyone in present was mourning and weeping for Fearless’ premature death. Misery, Fantasy, Merleon, too could not hold back their tears, miserably sobbed as they stood next to FY. Their best friend just died, of course, they would cry. But not FY, he was still in the state of shock, not really understand or accept. He really did not believe it. Yesterday morning, the two of them was planning to go fishing in the weekend. And now, one of them laid in a coffin while the other attended to his funeral. It didn’t seem real to FY. He thought the bastard would suddenly rise from his transparent coffin and tell FY that this was all but a prank in any second.

“You damn moron!”

A sharp voice in the crowd interrupted FY’s thought. Startled, he reflexively turned at the source. It was Alice. She was Fearless’ on again and off again lover for as long as FY could remember. Their relationship could only be described as complicated and rocky for the last eight years.

Her long, black hair was tied into a pony tail. She wore a black vest over white shirt, standing in front of Fearless’ mourning post.

“I told you that this day would come. I told you. That’s Karma. You deserve it for being too much of a playboy.”

Alice tightly clenched her fists as her entire body started to quiver. Her large eyes emitted an aura of sweltering contempt as she angrily stared at Fearless’ smiling portrait, not for long. The eyes of contempt soon gave way to the waterworks.

“You damn moron,”

Alice broke down in tears, howling in disdain as her friends who stood next to her wrapped their arms around her into a tight hug.

FY felt like his heart was stabbed by a thousand spears. His eyes began to blur and he had to wipe it with the sleeve of his vest. But it did nothing to stop the waterworks. His vision blurred out on Fearless’ smiling portrait.

Fearless, you are such a bastard. You know that?

FY fought to hold back his tears for the length of the funeral no matter how futile his effort may appear. His nails bit into the inter side of his palms for the whole time, refusing to let go. But FY felt no pain. He could not feel the pain.

It was still raining heavily outside. It has been raining nonstop since yesterday when FY received the grave news. It was as if heaven wept for the tragic death of Fearless.

Goodbye bro, I will miss you a lot.

FY held onto the sandalwood when it was his turn to offer the incense. He closed his eyes and whispered the parting words to Fearless.

Goodbye, my friend

 

Chapter 2

Spoiler

Dried woods cackled within the red burning brazier and reflected the dancing shadows on the ceiling of the dark catacomb. The air was stinking humid, smell like mold.

A drop of sweat rolled down on Makerth’s forehead and somehow managed to find its way into his right eye. It stung him more than he thought it would. But he refused to let it affect his concentration and interfere with his mission. He closed his right eyes shut and pumped more mana into the forbidden artifact placed on the altar.

The forbidden artifact place on the altar of the dark god known as the eye of Magnamor seemed to laugh at the effort of Makerth and his 107 fellow magic casters to fill it with their mana. According to the legend, once the eye of Magnamor was filled up with mana, it would open a gateway to the Underworld and invite one of the fifty reigning demon kings of the Underworld to the realm of mortal. But Makerth and his magic casters had done nothing but filling the artifact with their mana for the last five hours and the damned artifact, it showed no sign of any reaction. He wished that he had more time to prepare, to gather more magic casters for this ambitious project, at least another hundred or so within their organization to complete this ritual. But, it had to be today, or Makerth must try to outlive even the oldest elves to redo this ritual. Today, the constellation arrangement was perfect. The path to the Underworld was the closest to the mortal realm and the spirit plane of the Otherworld was at the furthest. Thus, the mana required to open a gateway to the Underworld should be at the minimum level. It was the perfect opportunity for Makerth to try this experiment.

According to the old legend, each one of the fifty demon kings of the Underworld could wipe out a country on their own. But, destruction was not Makerth and his fellow magic caster had in mind, nor chaos. Their goal was to summon and dominate the demon lord and experimented on him. Of course, they would not participate in such dangerous experiment had they have no countermeasure against the demon lord. The legendary sword of seal Enfermé was hidden beneath the altar, the moment the Demon Lord appeared, he would be stabbed by the sword and thus placed under the domination of Makerth and his fellow magic casters.

Yet, Makerth had an inkling promotion that he would not succeed. He felt drained. His mana capacity was reaching the bottom, his fellow magic casters, not so much different, in fact worse. They would reach their limit very soon. But Makerth kept his mouth shut and just concentrated on supplying mana to the artifact. He wanted to see the end of his magic experiment. He wanted to see if a man can dominate a demon lord. He wanted to know what kind of creature a demon lord was.

Mana left his body as a flowing pace like a raging river in the flood season. Makerth gritted his teeth in frustration. The damn artifact showed no reaction at all. He was about to fail.

Makerth turned at his fellow magic casters, was about to tell them that he was sorry, that this experiment was going to fail anyway. A light shone through the dimly lit room. Makerth turn back at the artifact, it was shining in a ghastly bluish light. It rearranged its structure, spinning in the air as the ghastly light came from within its core started to focus in one place. The space where the light shone started to distort and Makerth unknowingly smiled. He was about to succeed.

More mana. Makerth tightened the grip on his magic cane. He eagerly pumped more mana into the artifact while staring at the distorted space.

A scream echoed, Makerth turned, a fellow magic caster crumbled to the floor, his veins popped up, his skin turned bluish purple as he was twitching on the ground. That poor fellow was completely drained of mana. The only way Makerth could save him was stopping the experiment, telling the rest of the magic casters to stop channeling their mana into the artifact. And they have to circulate their mana in an orderly manner to stop mana channeling. But, the experiment, Makerth’s sight turned back at the distorted space, he’s this close to the success he has dreamed of.

That fellow really had bad luck, Makerth ignored the scream of the magic caster on the ground and refocused at the artifact. Light poured out of the artifact as it span faster and faster. Makerth heard more screams behind him.

“We have to stop this Makerth.”

The fools, they complained without an inkling of understanding of what was going here. Can’t they see that just a little bit more, Makerth and they would be the first of mortals to ever dominate a demon lord? Makerth paid no further attention on the screaming from behind. He just wanted this experiment to succeed.

“Stop this Makerth. They are dying. We are dying. We have to stop”

Screw you all, I’m this close to success, Makerth gritted his teeth and continued to pump his mana into the artifact and then he realized that he has already reached his limit, completely drained of mana. And yet, the artifact did not stop spinning around. It did not stop draining mana from Makerth and his fellow magic caster either. But they had no mana in their body. Still the artifact did not stop, it kept draining something, something else that was not their mana. It took Makerth a second to realize that it was their vitality, their own life force was being drained to compensate for the lack of mana. It was too late, Makerth could not stop the experiment even if he wanted to.

Makerth felt his knees hit against the cold and wet floor, hard. His trusty magic cane slipped out of his grip, rolling on the floor. His body started to twitch violently against his will. He felt cold.

The experiment…

That was Makerth’s last thought as he departed from the world.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Fearless stirred awake from his slumber. He slowly sprawled out on his bedding with his flailing arms, trying to get up. The damp and coldness he felt with his fingers made him suddenly felt wide awake.

A stony ceiling illuminated by the golden glow of fire entered his eyes. He reflexively glanced around, stony wall and stony floor, four scorched hot braziers at each corner of the room. His bedding too, was made of stone. It was cold, damp and stained black with mould and dust. This was no bedding, Fearless reflexively rose up, standing on his feet to have a better look, it was like an altar or something similar. There was even a sinister looking statue of a humanoid creature standing at the end of the altar and staring at him. The creature resembled a human due to its humanoid shape, but Fearless could never mistake it for a human. It had a pair of wings, one bat-like leather wing, and one feather bird-like wing. It held sword in one hand and a spear in the other. That sinister looking statue somehow looked strangely familiar to Fearless but he could not tell where he saw it.

“Okay, where am I?”

Fearless inwardly questioned himself with a surprisingly familiar question, one that he often asked himself while clutching to his head and trying to dig up his latest memory to find a clue. He remembered that one of his many exes called him while he was driving around the town. In a tearful voice, she told him that her current boyfriend has secretly cheated on her with her best friend. That’s the worst, a man should openly admit that he was two-timing or three-timing, secretly cheated on a woman was the worst thing a man could do to his lover. Fearless consoled her on the phone, telling her to stay where she was and immediately drove his car to pick her up. Before long, he brought her to a bar to make her drink and cried her heart out. And Fearless had no memory afterward.

“What is this place?”

Fearless climbed down the altar, his eyes still transfixed at the sinister looking creature. Fearless was not nervous. This was not the first time he woke up only to find himself in a strange place.

There was that one time where he was drinking with his teammates to celebrate their championship victory only to find himself wake up all alone on an unknown tropical island. There was that morning where he woke up only to discover that he was tied to a bed and surrounded by a handful of unfamiliar women equipped in S&M costumes. There was a time that he woke up only to realize that he was in a foreign country. There was that time he woke up finding himself on a king-sized bed with a handful of unfamiliar naked men and a freaking Bengal tiger. Somehow, he got used to wake up in strange places and bizarre situations and not knowing how he got there. Most of the time, alcohol played the biggest role behind those strange events.

But Fearless did not feel the usual head-splitting hangover assaulting his head. He did not remember drinking that much while consoling his ex. He was aware that he was a feather light weight despite his frequent consumption of alcohol and ordered a single cocktail while listened to the sob-story of his ex. Neither Fearless felt lethargic and extreme grogginess like those times that he was drugged.

Fearless carefully scrutinized the familiar looking statue for many minutes until he realized that the sinister statue would not give him a single clue. He quickly swept through the stony room with his eyes and stumbled on a figure lying flatly on the floor.

Fearless immediately decided to approach the lying figure. It was a beardy old man, probably in his late fifties or early sixties. The old man wore a gray hooded robe that reminded Fearless of the uniform of the Grayscale magic research academy, a fictional association featured in the game “Reign of Chaos”.

“Aren’t you too old for cosplaying old man? Hey, wake up,” Fearless supported the sleeping geezer with his arms and tried to wake him up by lightly slapping at his cheek. Cold, Fearless was astonished by the coldness he felt and nearly dropped the old man to the ground. He caught the old man just before the old man hit the floor with his face. He was surprised by how rigid the old man’s body was and tried to gently lay the strange geezer to the ground facing up. Fearless almost mistook the old man for a wax sculpture until he tried to touch the old man’s face again. It was cold and inelastic, but it was real skin. The old man was a real human, not a wax sculpture.

Fearless again, tried to wake up the old geezer, lightly slapping his face. Then, he had an unease premonition due to the rigidness and unresponsiveness of the old geezer.

“Oy, old man, wake up. Don’t scare me,” Fearless shook the unresponsive body to no avail. He then immediately brought his ear to the old man’s face. He did not hear any breathing sound and his heart immediately quickened, “Oy, don’t scare me, please,” Fearless placed his palm on the old man’s chest, there was no movement or beating or anything, “What the…” Fearless flinched and instinctively moved away from the corpse. It took him a full second before he could assume action.

Fearless reflexively tried to apply the chest compression on the old man despite his abysmal minimal knowledge of modern medical. His clumsy hands were gel-like, weak and flaccid. It was as if there was an invisible someone choking him, Fearless suddenly found himself unable to breathe. His heart felt like it was violently balled up by something. Fearless took a deep breath while performing the chest compression, trying to calm himself and his clattering teeth. “Don’t die. Don’t die,” Fearless begged in his rattled voice, desperately putting more power into his weak arms while adding his weight to perform the chest compression correctly. Then, he heard a crisp cracking sound burst forth from within the geezer’s unresponsive body. He immediately leapt off, separating himself from the corpse.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Fearless realized that he must have cracked the old geezer’s ribcage, using too much strength on the chest compression “I’m really sorry… Ambulance, I have to call an ambulance,” he searched for his phone within his pant pocket, there was nothing. He tapped around his leathery jacket and subsequently found his phone. He tried to unlock the phone but the damn thing did not respond to his sweaty and shaking finger. Fearless forcefully wiped his sweaty palm on his pants and tried to unlock his phone again. The stupid phone responded this time, ambulance, he need to call an ambulance.

What was the number again? 113, 114, or 115? Damn it, which one of them was the ambulance again? Crap, was it 113 or 114 or 115? Oh, yeah, FY told me that there was a new emergency service line that provided an improved overall service, nicer ambulances, faster response times and better-looking drivers.

“0118 999 881 999 119 7253” Fearless sang that strangely catchy song that he remembered his friend singing from time to time while tapping the number on his phone. It was out of service area, Fearless cursed and immediately searched for an exit. He followed the corridor behind the corpse of the old geezer to another dimly lit room, wider, bigger, and littered with people wearing the same uniform of Grayscale magic research academy lying on the ground. There must be at least a hundred of them.

Fearless froze on the spot, his stomach boiled, his legs felt weak. He tried to navigate through the room to find an exit. He stumbled on something, a man, “Sorry,” Fearless sprawled up and apologized with his clapping hands. The unfamiliar man was looking straight at Fearless, his eyes were big, the size of marbles, soullessly staring straight into Fearless’ eyes. The man’s face was purple and riddled with bloated greenish veins. His mouth frothed and agape, his hands clutched at his neck, his nails left marks on his neck.

His stomach tightened and Fearless felt something rose through his chest. He tried to swallow it down, whatever that something was, but he could not win against the inevitable. He could taste it at the end of his tongue, bitter like pills and sour like vinegar, that clouded, warm and smelly liquid shot out from his mouth and splashed on the cold stone floor as Fearless buckled over.

Fearless was never a fan of graphic violence or gory things. He might be fine with horror things, but gory things made him horribly sick every time. That man was dead, like clearly dead, for sure. The rest, those cosplayers on the ground, probably not in a better spot, either dead or really dead as well. Fearless ran, he ran like he never did before, like that time when one of his more crazy exes decided to break up with him with a chainsaw on her hands or that one time when that wife beater asshole chased after him with a machete in his hand just because Fearless made his wife divorced him.

Fearless ran, almost slipped and stumbled by the damp floor. He ran through that corpses littered room to another dimly lit corridor to another room and yet another corridor. He kept running and running, following his instinct rather than reason. His hand kept redialing the new emergency service line and his damn phone kept telling him that it was out of the service area. He did not know what happened yesterday but he knew he was in a really crappy situation.

Fearless ran through a series of dark rooms and claustrophobic corridors, turning left and right randomly as he ran. Finally, he saw natural light, not the flickering glow of burning charcoal in braziers and torches. Fearless ran toward that natural light through the dark corridor. A howling wind brushed by, bringing a welcoming fresh air to Fearless’ nose as he ran. He was sick of that nauseous mouldy smell. He was sick of seeing corpses. He would call ambulance and then police to deal with this crappy situation and after that, he would call Alice, asking if she would allow him to come to her place for the night. He didn’t want to be alone after something like this.

“What the…”

Fearless was at the end of the corridor, stunned and speechless. He was up high, probably twenties to thirties meter above the ground, standing on a mouldy and grassy stone deck. A green forest before him spread toward the horizontal and a long mountain range to his right. Fearless stared into his phone, still no signal, damn you phone. At this point, he wondered if he was already in a foreign country and tried the roaming mode, still no signal. Fearless started to feel scare. This situation reminded him of that time he woke up on that inhabited tropical island all alone. He had to stay on that island for two full days until his friends came for him. But that time, there was no corpses.

Fearless could not connect the dot between drinking a glass of cocktail with his ex to wake up in a strange place full of corpses no matter how much he thought. He decided to walk around the deck and explore. He walked and reached the edge of the deck to find a long stair formed by hundreds of huge stones at the size of a man stacked on each other. This structure immediately made Fearless thought of a pyramid until his eyes rolled on the two rows of damaged statues standing on both sides of the stairs which immediately gave him a conclusive answer. This structure was indeed a pyramid; a pyramid and a tomb. But, this giant structure could not be found on Earth, it should not be. It was not a Mesoamerican pyramid and definitely not one of the Egyptian pyramids. The two rows of statues, angelic creatures on the left and devil-like monsters on the right, they were the conclusive evidence for Fearless to identify this pyramid structure. This place was the Tomb of the dark god Naharis, a famous landmark of the Northern continent inside the game “Reign of Chaos “. But that made no sense. That made zero sense. Drinking a glass of cocktail should not bring someone to a different world, that was the job of the diligent truck.

“This makes no sense,” Fearless clutched his head and screamed. He knew that this was no dream. He touched that old geezer’s corpse, it was cold and rigid, extremely realistic, that was no dream. The disgusting sourness and bitterness aftertaste of stomach acid inside his mouth, too, could not be a byproduct of a dream. It was all real. He was in the merciless world of Reign of Chaos, the same game that brought him to stardom, the same game that changed his life once. This time, it changed his life again, forever.

 

You should add the harem tag. Also you either make WordPress page or post on Royalroadl for readers to easier find the chs.

 

Didn't get that 'lust' vibe from this, more 'amorous' or something, aka he gets around but i can't fap to it.

 

Thanks for the advice

 

Nice, I need more

 

Chapter 3

Spoiler

Chapter 3: An unprincely welcome

According to the lore of Reign of Chaos, the tomb of the dark god Naharis located in the depth of the Mangora forest in the eastern frontier of the kingdom of Zard. It was one of the many surviving ancient structures belong to the titan, a distant ancient civilization that dated before the high elf even existed. In the game Reign of Chaos, it served many purposes, a landmark, a place to hide thousands of troops and a place to perform a sacrificial ritual to summon one of the many demon lords of the underworld. But what Fearless did not know from the lore of Reign of Chaos was that the tomb of the dark god could be used as a motel, perhaps? He decided to spend the night in this eerie place.

Fearless was deep in his world of thought, clutching his head with one hand while laying with his magic coin and cards in the other. It was a habit of Fearless, one that accidentally became an iconic image of his among his fan base. He was called the Magician because he could not help but fidget with his magic coins and cards every time he needed to work out a strategy with his team in between matches. Then, he became anguished, realizing that no matter how much he thought, it would change nothing, Fearless stomped the ground with the sole of his shoes, spouting all kind of profanities in all sort of languages. Then came the state of denial, this could not be real, he told himself, pinching his cheek really hard, yup, it’s real. But surely, this must be an elaborate prank, if I search hard enough, I might see a hidden camera, Fearless began to laugh with confident as he searched, yup, nothing, this was no prank. Finally he sighed woefully in resignation, sitting down on the grassy stone deck and watched the copper colored sky turned darker and darker. The golden Rolex on his left wrist told him that he has spent five hours on that stone deck, doing nothing meaningful.

As Fearless was exploring the four stage of enlightening in Buddhism, the world did not stop and wait for him. The sun glowed red like a giant egg yolk as it sank into the sea of trees. Twilight came and robbed the world of its colors until the world in Fearless’ eyes looked like an old pencil sketched painting of black and white. Fearless told himself that he had no choice but to stay in the sinister tomb for the night, at least until he found a clue to improve his situation.

Fearless picked a less windy room near the tomb entrance to stay for the night. He plucked off a burning torch hanging on a corridor wall instead of using his phone as a light source. He did not know how his phone could be useful in the world of Reign of Chaos but just by having it in his hands gave him some measure of peace. He switched it to saving mode and left it in his pocket.

The room was small and claustrophobic. There was no hint of any furniture was ever being placed inside the room. He could not tell the purpose of the room from its design. Had Fearless seen this room though his PC screen, he would have written a complaint to the game developer for being lazy with the design.

While dusting off the cobwebbed wall to prepare his bedding, Fearless accidentally discovered a carved picture on the wall depicted the dark god Naharis planting the World Tree to save the titans from the Great Flood.

It was that moment, Fearless realized that he should not sit down in this room and being contented. He needed clues, that should be his number one priority for the moment. While he was not a person of action like Alice or even FY, Fearless took pride in being a very adapting man. Of course, after all of those experiences when he woke up only to discover himself in a strange places and bizarre situations from time to time, he learned a few lessons.

Staying in this one room would not provide him the clue he needed, and thus, Fearless tried to navigate his way back to that room with the dark good Naharis altar, the place where he first woke up in this world. May be if he was lucky, he would find a way to return to Earth immediately, yeah right, that’s not how that kind of ‘transfer to another world’ fiction works, Fearless lamented.

Fearless got lost more than ten times within the maze that was the tomb of the dark god as soon as he began his exploration. As he navigated through the tomb, he discovered more pictures depicting stories about the dark god Naharis on the walls. What he learned through the picture was nothing new, he have known the lore of Reign of Chaos like the back of his hands.

The dark god Naharis in those pictures was depicted as a kind and benevolent god to the titans and a cruel and merciless god to their enemies. Naharis would appear and give divine providence to the titans in catastrophic events or rained down divine wrath on their enemies. That knowledge was nothing new to Fearless.

Fearless was not aware of the layout inside of the tomb of the dark god. In the game, he only need to order his troops to enter it and hide with a single click of mouse button. There was no option for player to go inside and explore the layout inside. It took Fearless about half an hour before he finally returned to that corpses littered room. Fearless felt like throwing up again. He gingerly walked across the room, trying not to stumble on anything this time while chanting Buddhism mantra for salvation in his mouth for the whole time, and he wasn’t even a Buddhist devotee.

Fearless was back to where he came from, the altar of the dark god. Yup, it was still the same. That old geezer was as dead as ever and that sinister looking statue of the dark god Naharis still look as intimidating as ever. Yup, no clue. Fearless began to walk around the room, hoping for something to appear.

A silver glint blinded him for a moment, making Fearless squinted his eyes out of reflex. There was something metallic hidden underneath a stone panel next to the mouldy altar which irked Fearless’ curiosity. He immediately decided to investigate the object. He walked toward it, torch leading. Something flew, a white glimmer like a lightning bolt ripped through the inky darkness momentarily and projected a booming sound on the wall behind Fearless.

Fearless was frozen in place. He did not react, heck no, he could not react to that; maybe he could if he was Merleon… but he was just Fearless, himself. Fearless held his breath, his body was spiked with adrenaline, his heart felt like it stopped beating for a few seconds, he was that close to dying. Whatever that thing was, it missed his head by a few centimeter. Fearless gingerly turned around and trained his eyes on the object imbedded firmly on the wall.

A sword, no, not quite, its blade was too short for a sword and too long for a knife, its blade was like a stretched arrowhead, about twenty centimeter in length. The thing had no guard, just a short grip and a sharpened pommel. A name suddenly flashed inside Fearless’ head, Enfermé the sealing sword.

“This could not be the real thing, could it?”

Fearless wondered, pulling the blade out of the stony wall with his laughable strength. It was harder than he thought, Fearless grabbed the hilt and cranked the blade up and down. It stuck. He planted one foot on the wall and used his entire body strength to yank it out.

It really was Enfermé or at least an extremely lookalike replica version of it but Fearless leaned on the former. The sword was incredibly sharp and sturdy, it cut through stone like a blob of frozen lard without being damaged. It was the real thing, the sword of seal Enfermé. It was then Fearless became seriously confused. Why is Enfermé in this place? Enfermé had no business in the tomb of the dark god Naharis, it should be enshrined in the crystal vault of the scared temple Hemyscria of the elves as a divine relic.

“Why are you here?” Fearless asked while admiring the sword, of course, Enfermé being a sword, it could not give him any reply, he didn’t even expect the sword to answer him. He merely vocalized his thought. It was something like a bad habit that he developed over the years.

While Enfermé made no attempt to reply to Fearless’ question, the unknown lying geezer on the ground did, in the form of fart. Fearless was startled by the sudden noise, he immediately turned at the old geezer.

The old geezer as if trying to tell Fearless something, farted again.

“You are alive, old man,” Fearless was so surprise that he accidentally dropped Enfermé on the ground. The sword clanked off the floor disapprovingly.

The old geezer farted twice as if affirming. It was that very moment, Fearless felt that there was hope for humanity as a whole. He felt like he was Albert Einstein when he first discovered E = mc2 from his theory of relativity. He felt like he was Sima Yi when he learned that Zhuge Liang has finally passed away. He felt like he was the incredibly homesick Odysseus who managed to return home after so many years.

Fearless ran at the old man. His head was full of thought. He thought about trying to support the old geezer, making him lie in a more comfortable position, maybe? Or put the old man on the altar, maybe that will give him more warmth or started a fire in this room. However, the moment Fearless touched the old man, the geezer was dreadfully cold and rigid, so rigid that Fearless could not even bend the old man’s body over to carry him. Fearless checked the old man’s chest again, no beat.

“Can you not toy with my expectation like that? I was so happy that I thought I’m finally not alone anymore,” Fearless let loose of his suppressed anger, stomping on the cold floor as he began to tear up.

The old geezer farted again.

“Fuck you. How can a person be so rude?”

Again, the geezer farted.

“I’m not talking to you anymore. Fuck you,” Fearless swore at the old geezer as he stomped out of the room in frustration.

And the geezer farted boomingly without any sense of modesty as if triumphed.

That day, Fearless earned his first verbal argument defeat in the world of Reign of Chaos ever, handed by a farting corpse no less.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Fearless was a man who has a lot confident in himself. He was confident in the princely look he inherited from his mom and dad. He was confident in his ability to go underneath the skirt of any woman he met. But confidence was one thing, pride was another, sometimes, they would not go hand in hand. While he was confident about those attributes of his, he wasn’t necessarily proud of them. He was the kind of man who took pride on many inconsequential things. He took pride in being the greatest friend that FY has ever had. He took pride in his ability to keep his pro-gaming team The Alliance intact for almost a decade through up and down without changing the team roster. He took pride in putting the uniform of The Alliance on his body. And he took pride in his ability to stay positive for as long as he could in the worst hours.

Being defeated in a verbal argument with a farting corpse was not the worst experience he had, Fearless told himself, trying to be as positive as he possibly could be. The worst experience he had was not even that dark memory when his The Alliance got swept in the final by an underdog team. It was not even the time when his sex tapes with an up and rising gravure idol got leaked to public media. Or that time he accidentally slept with the daughter of his manager.

If Fearless was to sit and thought of the worst experience he had ever had, that one time he woke up butt naked on a king-sized bed with a handful of naked dudes and a freaking Bengal tiger was easily his worst experience. And it didn’t even come from the fact that when he woke up, he was holding the tiny shriveled penis of that one dude in his hand. It was those questions that kept popping up inside his head at that time.

Question like “Did I …?” made him immediately touched his own magnum to check for the evidence that he wished do not exist. It did not, great, he was beside himself with sheer exaltation. But the followed-up question “Did they …?” completely terrified him. He checked his ass with his fingers but he had no idea how to check for the evidence this time. He had no knowledge of how that even works. And then, before he could even calm himself, he saw that Bengal tiger was also on the bed. He immediately told himself that it was a really big stuff toy while the creature breathed soundly in front of him, its tail moved left and right, its chest moved up and down. That’s a really realistic stuff toy, Fearless assured himself, got up from the bed as discreetly as he could possibly be. And the giant stuff toy woke up all of the sudden.

While the rest of the dudes belonged to the naked dudes association were snoring soundly, completely unmoving as if they pretended to play dead. The beast woke up. Its ears perked up like a guard dog observing a stranger came close to its territory. The tiger stared and looked into Fearless’ eyes with its hypnotic amber eyes. And Fearless froze up, right on the spot, without moving a single muscle. He just stayed where he was, one foot still on the bed, one foot almost touch the floor while entering a staring contest with the beast. Fearless could almost swore that he heard Lionel Richie’s suave voice singing Hello inside the back of his head while locking eyes with the tiger, except there was no such thing, that was the sound of his racing heart. Fearless did not know how long the staring contest would last but he instinctively felt that he must not break the eye contact with the beast. And somehow, he came out wining in the contest. The beast suddenly broke the eye contact and yawned, its reddened toothy mouth opened wide. But, Fearless had no time to celebrate. The beast got up, licking its lips with its big red tongue and approached Fearless.

The tiger was huge and heavy. Its paw sunk deep into the mattress with each step it took. Fearless desperately tried to reestablish eye contact with the tiger, hoping that he could stop it, and it did, staring into his eyes with its hypnotic amber eyes but it did not slow down. One of the dude slept near the edge of the gargantuan mattress flopped out of the bed because of the beast’s movement and hit the ground. That halted the beast. It trained its eyes at that one naked dude. The bastard somehow could still sleep some more despite just hit the floor. He produced some small unintelligible noises within his mouth, then scratched his crotch and rolled over to sleep again.

The tiger wore that, “Meh, not interested,” looked on its face, turned and reengaged eye contact with Fearless and approached him again. By this time, Fearless swore that this tiger must be a monster or something. It had a gorgon look that completely petrified him. He had decided to run, to scream, to wake up all of those naked dudes, but he could do nothing. He could neither move his legs nor arms. He could make no sound. He just stood, staring right into the tiger’s eyes, doing nothing until he could feel its hot and damp breath on his face.

Fearless breathed as quietly as he could. He was surprise by the soapy smell on the tiger body and was secretly hoping that the big cat was completely domesticized. And…

It hurt.

Fearless did not know what prompted the tiger to do what it has done, to lick his baby magnum with its barbed red tongue.

It hurt. And it hurt, like really hurt, like really bad. It hurt so much. And he could not even move a muscle.

The tiger licked, and licked and it licked some more.

It hurt. It hurt so fucking bad, like real bad, like really bad, like really really bad, like his baby magnum would be torn off.

Fearless was terrified. He was completely terrified by the thought that he could be attacked and killed if he stopped the beast from licking his baby magnum or his baby magnum would be eaten by the beast or worse.

In that instance, for reasons that only Gods knew, his baby magnum suddenly decided that enough was enough. It demanded its right of freedom and independency out of nowhere and grew to size to prepare to combat the conflicts to come.

What the fuck are you doing?

Fearless silently screamed at his baby magnum but the brainless bastard, the brain dead bastard, it refused to revoke its right for freedom and independencency and fought back against the aggressor without a single plan.

A single shot broke the stillness of the oppressed. War has arrived.

Freedom, independence, dead to the invader, dead to the enemy, dead.

The tiger ran away like a giant pussy it was. The war was fought and won with a single shot. His brain dead baby magnum had won the day. It fucking did it.

Fearless silently cheered for the victory of the oppressed, making a gusto pose. The oppressed had won against the evil colonizer. Only then, Fearless had the luxury to comprehend of what just happened, the implication of that victory.

The tiger was defeated. It was a victory for his baby magnum but it was not a victory for him. He got done in by a tiger.

Fearless has thought that dark page of his history would improve his mood because that it was the worst experience he had ever had, therefore, it could only be better. But he ended up crushed instead.

He got owned by a farting corpse and got done in by a tiger.

 

Lol tiger x fearless OTP

 

I bet tiger beastmen race if real in that universive are going to give him nightmare s if he met them.

 

Chapter 4
uploaded on royalroad but forgot to update here...
Anyone interested can follow me on http://royalroadl.com/fiction/17368/saga-of-the-lustful-king

Spoiler

Chapter 4: An unprincely farewell

Fearless sighed, and he sighed again for the zenith times of the day. He was really depressed for a variety of reasons. First, he could find nothing during his first and second exploration around the pyramid, nothing that could possibly allow him to go home, not that he knew of one. Second, he was alone with a bunch of corpses in an eerie tomb. Third, he has just carefully considered of his long term prospect in the case that he could not return home for a long time or ever, the future was as dark as a dark hole. Fourth, he started to talk to himself.

Fearless wished that his phone at least had internet connection, that way he could at least tweet with his fans to alleviate his depression, or chatting with Alice or playing online games to improve the condition of his current mental health or googling to find a method to return home.

Now, that’s some high level escapism.

Fearless sighed again. There was limit to how much positive he could be and he thought that he was approaching his limit. What he was doing at the moment was something like a class change in a table top RPG game, he sighed, it was not the kind of class change he preferred anyway.

The reason why he decided to have class change at the moment was because he realized that he could not remain in the tomb of the dark god forever. He cannot just scavenge for food and water in the tomb and live his day with a bunch of corpses forever.

Aristotle stated “Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.”

FY and Fearless were devotees of such belief. The only different between the two of them was that FY understood and appreciated the philosophical aspect of that wisdom whereas Fearless, he fell in love with the practicality inside those wise words of Aristotle.

Fearless knew how lonely and miserable a man can be, being separated from the society. It came from his personal experience of being left behind on that tropical island. It was easily the worst experience he has ever had… had he not meet that damn Bengal tigress… yeah that tiger was a she… it did not make him feel better.

Fearless got to learn how miserable a man he was on that island. He did not know how to search for fresh water. He did not know how to hunt the damn fishes for food. He ate the wrong kind of fruits and ended up buying a one-way ticket to the dystopia of diarrhea. He could not make a proper bedding. He could not start the damn fire. It was miserable beyond any measurement of misery. He was not a prince on that island. He was a no god as well, and thus he could only become a beast.

His friends were extremely apologetic about that incident, especially FY and Fantasy, the knowledge that they had left Fearless on that inhibited tropical island haunted them for the rest of their lives even after Fearless told them that he forgave them. As for Fearless, he wasn’t even salty about that. He felt no anger or resentment for them or any kind of ill-will toward his friends. He understood the fact that once people get drunk, shit happened. And he went through shitty situations like that more than often due to the way he partied. And besides, that experience taught him many things. One of the many things that he learned from that terrible experience was that “Man will degenerate into beast the moment he is isolated from society.”

Thus, Fearless made his second most important priority to return to civilization.

The nearest town from the tomb was in the kingdom of Silver Snow, lying beyond the great mountain range of the Spine. To go there, Fearless must go through the Mangora forest and climb over the Spine, not a great plan, especially for someone who was extremely terrible at sports and made a career out of gaming and partying.

The second nearest town was the frontier city of Madukat, technically it was still within the Zard kingdom, locating in the golden triangle region where the border of the three kingdoms of Zard, Silver Snow, and White Winter intersected. Now, that was a feasible choice, maybe? Fearless believed that he could made it to Madukat as long as his will to return to civilization remained true. However, to reach Madukat, Fearless must first head North through the Mangora Forest and crossed the Bison Prairie, quite a distance, and he needed to seriously planned and prepared for that trip.

Fearless remembered that he has undergone many class changes in the past. He took the first class change from being a pianist to a magician when his mom passed away from cancer. Then, he took another class change from being a magician to pro-gamer after he met FY. And now, after thinking of his prospect in the world of Reign of Chaos, he decided to take another class change into a hybrid class between an undertaker and looter… so underlooter perhaps? Yeah, let’s not go with that. That’s a terrible naming sense…

Fearless has swapped his clothes for a Grayscale hooded robe that he found inside a room that has been converted to a living quarter. He wasn’t sure if the robe belonged to a male or female. It smelled like old people…

But, it’s better than allowing his clothes to enveloped in the smell of corpses. And it was that moment, Fearless became somewhat confused, the clothes he wore to this world of Reign of Chaos was not the same thing that he wore to meet with his ex. For whatever reason, he had The Alliance’s uniform with him instead of the pink shirt and white jean he wore when he listened to his ex’s sob story. However, Fearless quickly dismissed that as a minor detail and stopped being concerned about that.

Fearless was moving and rearranging the corpses of those magic casters so that he could prepare a mass funeral for them. At the same time, he was searching their body for valuable items. In his mind, Fearless told himself that it was a service fees since he made a lot of effort into rearranging their bodies to prepare for their funeral. As Fearless was moving the corpses, he chanted the Buddhism mantra for salvation, and prayed to the Christian god, the Norse gods, the Greek gods, the gods of Reign of Chaos… In his mind, he would send off the magic casters to wherever they wanted to go in their afterlife. If they wanted to go to Valhalla, good, if they decided to go to heaven, great, if they made a decision to enter Samsara or Nirvana, excellent, as long as they would not haunt him in the future, anywhere is fine.

He threw up, like many times until there was nothing in his stomach for him to throw up. It’s hard work but after repeated the process from one corpses to another, somehow Fearless got used to that.

The future looked bleak. It was like yesterday he was at the top of the world and today, he could not get anywhere lower than he was. Once again he sighed. He thought of doing something funny to bright up his mood and thus brought out his phone to take a selfie with the pile of corpses behind him. He opened his Tweet account and started typing “#Classchange, #in another world,” of course, he could not upload it, but he did it anyway, because… why the heck not?

“What the fuck am I doing here?” Fearless sighed and lamented, became even more depressed than before doing that stupid shit. He really felt like he would go crazy if he had to stay in this forsaken place longer.

He put his phone back in his pocket and resumed working. It did not take long for Fearless to decide that he’s done for the day. He was tired, physically and mentally, he just wanted to lie down and rest. Fearless scanned the room and quickly examined his work, geh, and odd sound escaped his mouth and he thought he has finished moving at least fifty corpses or so but in reality, he only managed twenty seven. Fearless wished that he had listened to Merleon’s advices and exercised more.

He left the corpses filled room and moved another room that the Grayscale magic casters have been converted into their sleeping quarter. Whilst exploring the temple, Fearless discovered a collective seven rooms that have been converted to living quarter by the magic casters.

Four rooms were used as living quarters, one room was converted to a makeshift mess hall, the last two rooms were used as storage. Each of those four rooms that was used as sleeping quarter, there were dozens of dark colored sheets spread on the floor like packed sardines. There were also sachets and numbers of personal items lying around in the rooms. From the way it looked, this group of Grayscale magic casters must have lived in this tomb for days or possibly weeks.

Fearless was full of questions, things like:

“What are these people doing here?”

“Were they trying to summon a demon lord? They cannot summon a demon lord without a special corruption artifact. But I did not see one… Need to search for it. It is probably lying around somewhere in that room.”

“Isn’t their number too little to summon a demon lord? Did they die because their summon ritual went wrong?”

“Did they steal Enfermé from the elves or did they borrow it?”

“Am I summoned to this place as a demon lord? Nah… That sounds edgy as hell… Please don’t let it be true.”

Fearless did not have conclusive answers to any of those questions. He decided to lay them off for the moment. He picked a random sheet to lay his back, and he slept, just like that.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Each of our members of The Alliance was in a sense the image of masculinity itself.

Starting off with FY, he is the very image of masculinity because he was a true gentleman. He walks like a gentleman, talks like a gentleman and behaves like gentleman. It is like FY strived to be the embodiment of gentleman and become one himself. That’s aside, FY is an incredibly charismatic person, easily one of the most charismatic person I have ever met and I got to meet a lot of charismatic people ranging from movie stars to show hosts due to my partying habit. The way FY talks and behaves makes people drawn to him, makes them wanted to talk to him more and stays by his side. The first time I met FY, I instantly thought that I wanted to grow up like that. I tried to emulate how FY talked, how he walked, how he behaved and to an extent, I could say that I have succeed to do so. However, I could never be FY. FY is FY, nobody could be him.

Merleon is very different to FY or anyone of us. He is a 215 centimeters giant. He is tanned and muscular and looks nothing like a pro-gamer. If Merleon was to introduce himself to a bunch of people who do not know him that he is a pro-gamer, they would instantly think that he was bullshitting or trying to make a joke. If Merleon was to strip down to his triangle pants and walked on a street, people would instantly mistake him for one of those three hundreds in Zack Snyder’s movie that somehow has traveled into the modern day society. More than often, Merleon was halted by the securities as he walks into the contestant area because of his physicality.

One time, there was a Reign of Chaos major tournament held in the Twin arena, I and the rest of my team were sitting inside our reserved area and wondering what took Merleon so long to get there. We waited for Merleon and at one point we started to feel extremely nervous, wondering if Merleon got into some sort of accidents. And then, Merleon’s SMS came, “Help, I can’t convince the security to let me go in.”

The security was like, “Dude, you are in the wrong area.”

And Merleon answered, “I am a contestant mate” in his thick Brisbane accent.

“I know. But you are in the wrong area. This area is reserved for Esport pro-gamer. Your area is in the opposite direction. Go back to the main hall and take the left turn.”

“But I am a pro-gamer mate.”

“Mate, very funny, but I am very serious here. Stop making troubles for me. Go back to the main hall and turn left or I will call my mates here to escort you there, mate,” the security ended the discussion while mimicking Merleon’s Brisbane accent.

There was a heavy weight boxing tournament hosted in the same arena that day and the security was so convinced that Merleon was supposed to enter that tournament instead due to the latter’s sheer size and muscle.

Fantasy, Fantasy is the most fashionable person that I have ever known. Fantasy was aspired to be a fashion designer like his mother when he was young but life has a different plan for him. Somehow, while Fantasy was on a fast track to become a successful fashion designer, he met FY and got converted to a pro-gamer. It’s like one of those weirdest stories ever. However, what make Fantasy the image of masculinity was his absolute confidence in his own fashion.

Sometimes, Fantasy just wore the most controversial, the most hideous, the most bizarre, and the most unthinkable costumes that anyone has ever seen. It was the kind of costumes that make me asked, “Dude, you are really going to the party with me wearing that?”

And Fantasy had that surprise expression on his face, “Why not? What’s wrong?” as if everyone else are the weird one, not him.

And Misery, Misery, o Misery. How do I begin with Misery? Misery is like an edgelord, no he is an edgelord and the only edgelord that make me think that being an edge lord is cool. Even his nickname comes off like an edgelord. Misery is the type of people who would casually stroll the street with his over the top edgelord torn-up trench coat, his edgy worn-out pants and boots, with his edgy shirt and sunglasses just to buy just a pack of cigarette and is not afraid of what people think of him. He is unapologetic if he ever comes across as an edgelord to most people. He is just being himself, minding his own business and listening to his own inner voice rather than listen to what people telling to him to be. If that’s not what masculinity is, I don’t know what.

“And how about you? I think that you are quite an image of masculinity yourself”

Hahahaha, thank you, thank you.

I laughed, not sure how to proceed with the subject.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Fearless woke up in the state of total darkness. He was able to get a proper sleep, not a good sleep, but a proper one. He even got to dream of that one time he was invited to the talk show of Jimmy Holland, one of Alice’s biggest talk show rival because FY was so busy and could not attend it.

The torch that he placed in the room has burnt out and the one next door was probably in the same state. He used his phone as the light source to navigate his way around the room. He remembered seeing stacks of unburned torches and sacks of firewood stored in the room next door during his exploration. It was this kind of moment that made Fearless regretted that he was not a smoker like Misery. He had no lighter or matches to start a fire. He cursed himself for his carelessness thinking that the fire would burn ….like forever. Luckily for Fearless, the braziers in the big room that littered of corpses was not burnt out. He used the brazier’s flame to kindle the unburned torch and decided to walk outside of the tomb to have some fresh air. He got lost twice as he navigated to the tomb entrance. It’s dawn. The sun hid within the vast shadow of the Spine, peeking out, barely, like a shy girl who was having a mental battle between her shyness and curiosity. Fearless took his time to synch his Rolex with the time in this world, assumed that it was about six or seven in the morning from the height of the sun. He took a deep breath, lamented the fact that he had no tooth brush with him, nor coffee and toast for breakfast and resignedly sighed and resumed with his arduous work.

At this point, Fearless could faintly smell that odor, the odor of rotting flesh, like that package of chicken breast he thawed and forgot to cook after two days. He threw up, nothing came out, just his gluey and smelly stomach acid. He had not drink or eat anything since the moment he came to this world. Fearless willed himself to stick with his work before the corpses became smellier. Food and water can wait. He wrapped his handkerchief around his face like a mask, refueled the braziers with firewood and started working.

It was hard work but Fearless kept willing himself, repeating his mantra that this was necessary for his survival and mental health. He had no wish to degenerate into a beast like that time. He wanted to be back to civilization as soon as he could even if it was a very different civilization from the one that he was familiar with.

The Rolex pointed two when Fearless was done with his task. Eight hours has passed since he started to work in the morning. He has managed to rearrange the corpses into three giant piles to prepare for their mass funeral. He gathered the loots and divided them into three categories, using three hooded robes as makeshift wrappings to transport the loots to the storage room. Fearless felt like he really need a drink. He felt hungry but he had no appetite after the kind of work he just did, that rotting smell still lingered in his nose canals. But he needed water. His parched throat felt withered like that one time he woke up after a blackout induced by a single glass of Rectified spirit.

Fearless returned to the sleeping quarter, the mess hall was too far for his tired legs, he remembered seeing a number of water sacks lying around the sleeping room. He took one at random and gulped down the entire sack. It felt good. This was the second time in his life that he was able to experience how good, how tasty, plain water can be, he can even forgive that leathery smell. It’s good to be alive.

Fearless had no idea how much of the firewood he would need to cremate 109 corpses. He ransacked the storages for firewood and other combustible materials. He was in luck. He found four barrels of wine. Out of pure curiosity for researching purpose, Fearless decided to savor the first taste of alcohol in the world of Reign of Chaos… tasted like inferior wine product…

After made a quick mental calculation, Fearless decided to fill five water sacks with wine and used the rest for cremating. Inferior product’s still better than nothing…

It took Fearless several trips before he could transport all the firewood sacks and the four wine barrels to that big room. He arranged the firewood evenly on the three piles and then poured the wine on them.

Three torches fell down, three pyres went up and the sentimental man honestly prayed for the souls of the 109 men and women to reach the place they wanted to go in the afterlife.

On the fourth morning after being transported to a new world, Fearless has completely packed the stuffs he wanted to take with him. He said goodbye to the eerie tomb of the dark god, heading North with the determination of reaching the frontier city of Madukat.

 

Thanks I just gave your novel 5 stars at RRL

 

thanks my friend, you just make me realize that i forgot to updated the chapter on this site again. Doing it on both sites starting to make it feel like a chore now...I wonder how most people do this

Chapter 5

Spoiler

Chapter 5: The bride of the warden

Had it not been for the years he had spent on the Broken Shore of Neirra, Moira might have no real understanding of just how boring her life could be, and she sighed. She pondered on that thought as she opened the small window of her small and suffocating carriage. A white snowflake playfully invited itself into Moira’s carriage and she caught it with her hands.

So it was true, they said that the snow of the kingdom of Zard was warm.

That little discovery brought a small smile to Moira. She could not recalled being bored as a girl, always running around in the garden of her father’s castle in Itos with her wet-nurse or pretending to be one of her father’s knights riding a pony with an dead tree branch in her hands while fighting fake dragons.

Adolescence did not condone Moira to such simple unladylike pleasures, and she had been confined inside the women’s quarters of the castle with her eldest sister Rosalia, behind oppressive closed door and high walls, under the stern gaze of elderly matrons. At first, she has rebelled against the matrons and her father, but eventually, she had succumbed. At last, said the elderly matrons in celebration as Moira lived in the uneventful and languorous days, in the calm, almost tranquil surroundings.

Rosalia was the most beautiful person in the world and she could do everything the matrons taught her perfectly, Moira could never contest her sister on anything except when it came down to magic. Rosalia inherited all the parts that made their mother earned the title the Pearl of the North, and more. It was as if Rosalia was molded by the pure genius of the gods themselves. Rosalia’s beauty made all those rich man’s daughters that were invited to her mother’s tea parties green with envy despite they never showed that to her. In front of Rosalia, they lavished her with praises, all smile and admiration but behind her back, they were cursing her for being prettier than them and lived in a luxury that their father could never provide them. But the pure and good Rosalia would never know that. And there has been no lack of prospective suitors for Rosalia, always, the constant flows of messengers, the mountains of mails, and the piles of the gifts that were sent to their father almost became a nuisance to him, until one day it suddenly stopped. One evening, Rosalia was invited to a ball and there, she met the Crown Prince of the kingdom himself. Immediately after the party, the prince proposed to Rosalia and what happened after that was history. Rosalia wedded the prince and their father was elevated to the rank of Marquis.

Unlike Rosalia, the gods have not been kind to Moira. She could never learn to stitch properly, her stiches have been always ugly and crooked. She could not make great poetry like her sister either. The only thing Moira could take pride in herself was magic, civilization magic.

To use magic spell, a person need to have an affinity for magic, have enough mana for the spell, pledge their service to the god, offer their prayer to the god and have a magic medium. That has been true for thousands of years unless the said people were the devil spawns. However, two hundred years ago a man named Cipher managed to remove that part about pledging service to the god by successfully creating a special magic medium. That special magic medium was today’s magic scepters and magic canes. Because Cipher, a person did not have to be religiously involved with a Religion to use magic, a person can use magic by offering their prayer to the god, having the affinity for magic, having enough mana for the spell and have a special magic medium.

Moira herself, was lucky enough to inherit a few of her mother’s features, her rich and full bosoms, her golden hair, her square jawline and her lush lips, not much of anything else. Her mother told her that her fingers were too big, unladylike, not slim and long like her or her sister. Her father used to tell Moira that she was too tall and intimidating, her piercing and forbidding amber eyes would instantly douse any spark of flame in the heart of any man who was ill-fated enough to wed her. Her father has made plans for her to become the lady in waiting for the kingdom’s future queen or made her pledged herself to the service of the Great Temple after considering her aptitude for civilization magic. But one day, without telling her any reason, her father sent Moira to his vacation house in the Broken Shore of Neirra with a handful of his most trusted knights, her magic tutor and a dozen of servants. And since, she has lived in the Broken Shore for years without really questioned her father decision.

In the Broken Shore of Neirra, Moira has not have a single dull moment. She quickly befriended herself with the local priestesses of Essence Temple. They taught her how to shoot a bow, to fight with a spear, to ride a horse, to swim on a moonlit night beach, to get drunk with strong wine and to freely express herself without the fear of censure. The knight leader who traveled with Moira to the Broken Shore more than often criticized her for her unladylike behavior but she could care less, there was no elderly matron here or her mother or her father to really make her stop being herself. And the old knight lamented how he has failed her father, but Moira did not care.

Every month when the moon was gold and full, they would host a feast among their sisterhood to offer tributes to their patron goddess Niwdar, they would randomly pick out three stones from their gilded urn and depend on the characters written on the stones, they would then host their competitions. It could be anything ranging from swimming to archery to poetry, or horse riding, or math test, or storytelling, anything that made life fun. And when the golden moon reached its highest point and strong wine was served, the women danced, sang, and laughed, and made love to each other.

The women of the Essence Temple, they worshipped Niwdar the nurturing goddess of nature, they lived and serviced their goddess in freedom without the restrictions of a male-dominated society, and they reveled in their freedom. They were like the real sisters that Moira has never had. Moira has intended to pledge herself to the service of Niwdar and joined the sisterhood as one of their priestess. However, Moira did not pass their test, she had no aptitude for nature magic and in order to be a priestess of the Essence Temple, one had to service their goddess with prayers and one had to service the people of the realm with their healing nature magic. That saddened Moira, and she was so confident in her aptitude as a magic caster.

But that did not deter Moira from becoming friends with the priestesses. Life then had seemed carefree and full of joy, until the day Moira received the news of her father’s death and her oldest brother has inherited the tile of the Marquis and wedded her the Warden of Golden Triangle Region on the same day.

Moira was beside herself with seething anger when she read that letter, so much that she tore it apart without a single thought. In her mind, she planned to sell all of the furniture and valuables in her father’ vacation house to hire mercenaries and free riders to fight her way back to Itos and denounced her stupid brother of his title of a Marquis and slapped his stupid face until he cried for their mother’s name. Had it not for her wet-nurse’s words and her mother’s letter, Moira would have probably turned that horribly stupid plan of her into reality.

To be a priestess of the Essence temple, one must able to service the people with their healing magic through their prayer to Niwdar. To be the daughter of a nobleman, one had to become the breeding mare of powerful noble houses or items to be traded for treaties and alliances. And Moira, she was a daughter of a Marquis, she understood that was her role in this world whether she liked or not.

The Warden of the Golden Triangle region was widely known for his warlike temperament, and it would not be good for the people of her kingdom if she was to…

Thus, Moira bade farewell to her beloved companions and set south to the foreign land of Madukat to wed a man she has never met.

A sudden jolted dragged Moira back from her fondest memories of the Broken Shore, her carriage suddenly halted. Moira leaned out of her carriage window, intended to see what’s going on.

”Bandits, bandits, form lines, protect the lady,” the old knight leader shouted, Moira did not have to ask. He saw Moira looking at him through the open window, he rode his horse next to her carriage, “Stay inside my lady,” and violently closed the window.

“Don’t be scared, my lady,” Iffy, the handmaiden handpicked by Moira’s oldest brother to travel with her to Madukat grabbed Moira’s hand, reassuring her. Moira was not scared, she was startled, probably nervous, but not scared, the scared one was Iffy. Her cold and sweaty hands were shaking miserably while holding to Moira’s hands, and her face was pale white.

Staying inside the carriage was a bad idea, it did not bring the feeling of safeness to Moira or at least alleviated her anxiety. In fact, it only fed into her anxiety of being not able to understand anything that’s happened on the outside and being not able to protect herself. Inside the carriage, it was a chaotic echoing mess of everything unholy, the sound of horses neighing, the screams of people, the screeching noises of the clashing of steels, the thuds of arrows hitting against the carriage, somehow staying behind the close door of this this suffocating and claustrophobic carriage made Moira felt scared instead. She dutifully obeyed her nature, shrugging off the sweaty hand of the trembling girl.

“My lady,”

“Stay inside,” Moira grabbed her decorated magic scepter and jumped out of the carriage.

The sound became real to Moira, no longer a chaotic mess of phantom echo inside her head. Snowflakes drifted in the wind, carrying the smell of blood and the sounds of battle to Moira.

Moira could see at least a hundred of bandits surrounding her convoy with a quick glimpse. She saw her old knight leader jumped off his horse and fought back three spear wielding opponents by himself to keep the circle formation from being breached. Moira immediately reacted, pumping her mana into her magic scepter.

“Sinintee, o mighty father, please heed the call of your daughter, what I seek is the eye of civilization.”

A red hot flaming orb appeared at the tip of Moira’s magic scepter. She aimed and launched the orb at the bandits and it hit one straight in the face. The orb burst like water bubble and the man screamed as he was immediately turned into a walking pyre.

The old knight leader glanced back at Moira by reflex for a moment before knocking off the spear of one of his opponent with his tower shield to dive in and impaled the startled bandit with a fine thrust from his long sword. He ignored the human pyre, glared at the other terrified spear wielding opponent and retreated back into the formation with the rest of the knights and guards.

“Shields, form an inner circle, protect the lady. If she get hit by an arrow I will kill all of you myself.”

The old knight knew Moira’s riotous nature so well through the years he served her at the Broken Shore villa that he understood that he would definitely fail to reason with her anyway, thus acted accordingly.

Immediately, three guards formed a defensive line around Moira with their tower shield.

“Sinintee, o mighty father, please heed the call of your daughter, what I seek is the eye of civilization.”

Moira prayed to Sinintee, the patron god of the Great Temple and the god of destruction and civilization, she conjured yet another fire orb at the tip of her magic scepter. She raised her magic scepter high, above the head of her guards and discharged the red orb at another bandit. It hit home this time as well. The burly bandit immediately dropped his sword and clutched his face, howled like a wounded beast, trying to douse the flame on his body in the warm snow.

Moira casted her spell again and landed her horrific fire orb on another ill-fated target. He shrieked like a dying pig and doubled on the snow.

Some bandits finally noticed Moira, they tried to break through the rank of knights to get to her but the knights and guardsmen stood strong. Arrows shot at Moira, but the loyal guards and their shield stood in between. Moira spotted a bandit crouched on a tree with his bow drawn. She prayed to Sinintee again and unleashed a world of pain on that single bandit. He howled and dropped to the ground. His scream was so loud and terrible that it almost suppressed the noises of clashing steel and the barking orders of the knight leader.

The effect of her spell was slowly felt by the bandits. The agonizing scream of their fellow bandits started to get into their head. They conflicted and yelled at each other, argued with each other, some still wanted to fight while the other just wanted to run.

After Moira turned another fifteen bandits into living pyres, the rest of the bandits all ran into the wood.

“The spell “eye of civilization” was not a spell designed and crafted to kill a human target. It was a spell initially created to dissuade combats,“ said Moira’s magic tutor.

Moira could never understand that. Those fire orbs were easily the most devastating thing she has ever known, they stick to the subject and they burnt, they were horrible. How could it be possible that something like that was created to dissuade combat?

Moira never understood that reasoning until today.

A sword or a spear or an axe or an arrow could do a better job than the orb of fire, quicker with more efficient. Eye of civilization can mortally wounded the target but one of its main purposes in warfare was to dissuade conflicts by inflicting a maximum level of pain to the target whilst they were alive. The horrific screams and the haunting image of the walking pyres were all it took to demoralize an army and dissuade them from fighting a battle. And because its effectiveness in demoralizing and dissuading targets to combat, Eye of civilization ironically became a beloved spell for war.

“My lady are you unharmed?” the knight leader quickly approached Moira in his bloodied armor.

“I’m fine,” Moira waved her hand, intending to check the casualty of her convoy herself.

“How could you be fine my lady? You fired off more than thirty of those fire balls. You must be exhausted by now. Please get into the carriage and rest,” the old knight opened carriage door and tried to support Moira as if she was a sickly patient or something.

“I’m totally fine,”

“No, you are not. Please get inside and rest. Leave the rest of the business to me.”

The old knight’s insistence made Moira gave up, she climbed into her carriage and right into the open arms of her scared handmaiden.

“My lady,” the girl hugged Moira with a stuffy hug, sobbing.

Moira could never get used to this, being a lady.

That day, 19 of the guards were wounded, 7 dead, none of the knight was hurt and the bandits did not make away with the gifts that Moira’s brother sent to the Warden.

 

Most people only update on one site unless there looking for multiple groups to see what pleople like and how to change the story to improve it.

 

Chapter 6

Spoiler

Chapter 6: The city of Madukat

Moira’s trip to Madukat was nothing but arduous and drilling. However, what made the trip became a living nightmare for her had little to do with the length it took to travel from the beautiful Broken Shore of Neirra to the foreign land of Madukat. It was the suffocating small carriage that she was jailed inside and the companies around her.

Iffy, the young girl who Moira’s oldest brother handpicked to be her handmaiden, to live with her in the foreign land of Zard, she bore Moira to tears with her attempts to engage in small ladylike pleasantries. Moira was reminded the deadening time she spent her days behind the closed door and high wall of the woman quarter in Itos whereas everything but the magic lesson became torturous for her.

Iffy reminded Moira of those rich man’s daughters who were invited to her father garden for tea party. They bore Moira with their talks about stiches, about the weather, about their pale white skin, about the jewels and decorations they wore, about the look of those prospective males that would wed and breed them, about everything that made life turned dreadfully gray and utterly boring to Moira. Moira only remembered repeating “Uh huh,” “Yes,” “No,” to Iffy over and over again throughout the majority of their conversations. And Moira had to admire Iffy for not being bored with her and still had the energy and excitement to keep talking to someone as bored as Moira every day for the three months they traveled from the Broken Shore.

Moira did not want to stay behind the blind and shade of her carriage. She wanted to ride horse, to feel the wind blew against her face, to feel the sun shone on her hair, the ever-so-faithful old knight leader sir Erik would deny Moira of such simple pleasure.

“It’s unladylike and bad for your image with my men, my Lady,” he adamantly reasoned.

It was time like this that made Moira dearly missed the villa at the Broken Shore. She missed the unforgiving frosty water that she swam with the local priestesses under the moonlit night all naked. She missed the exhilaration she felt after drawing her bow string to her cheek and watched the loosed shaft flew true to her targets. She missed the competitions, the laughter, and the fruity taste of strong wine on her most beloved sisters’ breasts and lips under the golden moon.

Moira wished that she could turn back time, rescinded her decision to be wedded to the warden and carried out her most stupid plan. She would laugh and savor the tears in her brother’s eyes as he called for their mother’s name to save him from Moira’s wrath. She wished she could do that without a single thought of her kingdom or people, she wished she was just that stupid.

Thankfully, there were moments, few, that this long and arduous and worn-out trip was not boring. Her convoy was attacked by bandits twice after she has crossed the border. It was not pretty, it was gruesome and haunting, but Moira welcomed it with open arms. It was only at the time like this that Moira felt that she could be herself. She did not want to stay in the shade, expecting to be protected by her knights and guards. She wanted to fight, protecting herself by her strength.

These bandits, it seemed that their mother did not teach them to not pick a fight with the users of civilization magic.

And she unleashed her scorching fire balls on the bandits, being guards behind walls of shields of her guards and the watchful eyes of the worrisome knight leader. The second time the bandits attacked, it appeared that they had expected Moira’s horrific fire balls. They came with round shields, bucklers, and hide shields in their hands while being extremely mindful of her presence. Once she set loose her magic, they would do their best to evade or block them with their soaked wet shields and discarded their lighted shield once it caught fire. It appeared that they were the same group that previously attack Moira’s convoy.

The bandits surrounded the convoy and rushed in like locust, this time with greater numbers.

Eye of civilization was not a spell created for war and combat. It was a spell initially created to dissuade combats. Moira gritted her teeth and ignore the taunting smirks on the beardy face of the bandits, depositing a ridiculously enormous chunk of her mana into her magic scepter.

“Sinintee, o mighty father, your daughter implores your mighty providence, what I seek is the breath of civilization.”

It was like the ancient priests and priestesses of the Great temple thought that the “Eye of Civilization” was not horrible enough and they decided to craft something even more horrifying, more destructive, , something that would inspire more fear to become a more fitting tool to use in war. And the “Breath of civilization” came to be.

In an instant, a dozen of the bandit were engulfed in a stream of bluish flame. They screamed and howled as the fire ravenously devoured their entire bodies whilst they were still alive. “Eye of civilization” was a highly advanced magic but the “breath of civilization” was an entire different beast. It was one of the most destructive magic spells belonged to the civilization magic branch, only a few people was capable of wielding such terrible spell. It was crafted from the image of the fire breathing mythical dragon. And nothing terrified men than dragons, Moira turned the dragon’s head on another group of flanking bandits, blue fire devoured them whole, thirty men or so, they howled and danced within the horrid fire, experiencing the one of the most horrifying and most painful deaths that that could befall on a person.

Witnessing such terrible image, the remained bandits ran for their dear lives, leaving their shields and weapons behind. And this time, Moira knew they would not come back for more.

Moira slumped like a bird got hit by an arrow, she felt drained due to the enormous mana consumed for the spell. The knight leader caught her just in time, he made a giant fuss, cursing Moira’s magic tutor for teaching her such terrible spell. Most of the time, the users of breath of civilization ended up killing themselves due to extreme mana exhaustion as they casted the spell. The old knight escorted Moira into her carriage in his pale white teary face as if he believed that Moira was about to die, but she didn’t. Her shortly recovery afterward made the old knight held his head in disbelief. He kept telling her to stop acting strong and just rest properly. But she didn’t. She did not pretend to recover from her exhaustion. She was fine, always, her magic tutor told her that her aptitude with civilization magic was unprecedented even if she could only wield fire spells among the civilization magic branch.

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“My lady, we have arrived,” the old knight’s light knock on the carriage door filled Moira’s with brimming expectation. She opened the carriage window and leaned out. While she was not keen on meeting her husband to be, Moira has looked forward to witness the high wall of the legendary city Madukat for a long time.

It was a huge disappointment, Moira was thoroughly heartbroken. The fort city of Madukat, one of the biggest city in the northern realm, the same fort city that has repelled an army of ten thousands of Silver Snow soldiers during the Hundred Years war that Moira has learned from her elderly matrons, it was a big disappointment for Moira.

The Fort city Madukat, also known as the golden city and the impenetrable fortress of the kingdom of Zard, was something of a legend even for people of the country of Silver Snow who fought on the opposite side during the Hundred Year war. It belonged to the Bellmore, the Warden of the Golden Triangle Region for generations, one of the wealthiest family in the north due to the large gold mine underneath Madukat. Or so Moira has heard from the tales of her matrons.

The Fort city of Madukat in front of her looked nothing like the tales and poetries or like the Madukat inside her imagination. It had towering walls and a really deep moat that filled with water during summer time to make the city look like it was built on an Isle and surrounded by a lake. But the towering walls of Madukat in Moira’s eyes felt like they could fall apart at any moment. They looked worn out and damaged.

“Was this city under a siege recently?” Moira asked her old knight.

“Not that I am aware of, my lady. But I see no smoke or dead bodies. So it could have happened some time ago,” the old knight replied, viewed the fort city with intrigued eyes.

The old knight has sent a messenger to ride half a day ahead of the convoy to inform the Lord of Fort city Madukat regarding Moira’s arrival, and yet he did not see the Warden’s rider or any reception from the Lord of Madukat to receive his bride to be. And the old knight inaudibly complaint of how rude the Warden was under his breath.

Only when Moira and her envoy approached the city gate, a bald and skinny man approached her envoy, introducing himself as Girout, housekeeper and the right hand of the lord and welcoming Moira to the city of Madukat.

“Master Girout, pray tell me what happened to the city?” Moira could not content her curiosity any longer and asked the bald man through her carriage window.

“My lady, please, just Girout, my lady,” the bald man respectfully bended his body to Moira, “Last month, there was a siege to the city, my lady.”

“That’s strange, I have not heard of any news about war,” the old knight chimed in, surprised by the news.

“No, there was no war, good sir. It’s a bandit attack,” Girout replied.

“Bandit? This is Madukat, is it not? What kind of bandits have the nerve to lay siege to this city?” Moira was beside herself with surprise, “What was Lord Bellmore doing?” and let slip of her inner thought.

Girout had that surprise look on his face due to the criticized words of his master’s bride to be. A woman would dare to criticize the lord of Madukat, inconceivable. But he instantly wiped any trace of such thought on his face, and bowed, “My lady, you don’t understand. There was a devil calling himself Scarface Bloodbeard live within the ruins of Bundor Bastion to the South of Madukat. He has won over all the bandit lords in this Golden Triangle Region and put them under his command. It is said that he had at least four thousands bandits serving him.”

“And…” Moira was cut off from her word, the old knight leader has forcefully closed her carriage window just in time to prevent her from questioning the Lord of Madukat’s authority over his land in front of his servants.

“My lady had an arduous and long trip. She is tired.” the old knight said.

“Please forgive me for not able to provide better reception. Please follow me, this way. We have prepared the accommodation for the lady and the rest of you, good sir.”

Moira could imagine Girout saying that while shaking his head with a fake hospitable smile on his face.

As her convoy travelled through the large gate of Madukat, Moira secretly peeked out of the gap of her carriage window. She saw a city devoid of warmth with streets that were full of beggars and haggard looking people staring at her convoy with curious eyes. It looked worse than the slum Moira once saw in Itos and this was the main street of the Golden city Madukat. In her mind, she told herself to not expect too much of her husband-to-be, some descendant of great heroes he might be, but his land was afflicted of bandits running rampant and his city was like this, she knew what to expect.

And Moira could not be more mistaken about that.

 

Chapter 7: Prince or Magician, who am I?

Spoiler

The Mangora forest named after one of its most dreadful inhabitants, the giant golden back Mangora spider. The Mangora spiders on earth were small, about the size of human’s thumb nail, and yet it could inflict so much terror to a man. However, the Mangora in Reign of Chaos, they were at the size of a grown English Mastiff, big and intimidating, could easily kill to any man with Arachnophobia with their appearance alone.

The Mangora spiders of Reign of Chaos weaved web, but not the kind of normal cobwebs like that of the city spiders in Earth spun to wait for any unfortunate preys to get stuck and trapped in them. The Reign of Chaos‘ golden back Mangora spider, they actively searched for their prey, quietly moving among the thick branches of overgrowth trees within the forest. Only when they found a target, they spun an orb of sticky web, then soundlessly crept in, slowly stalked down their prey one step at a time, and BAM, dropped the orb of web on the unaware creature, trapping it inside the sticky orb and completely sealed its fate.

Fearless still remembered vividly that one scene from a Reign of Chaos game trailer where a small unit of elven scouts was ambushed by the golden back Mangora spiders along with the dramatic music and eerie noises in the background. He understood that getting out of the Mangora forest alone by himself will not be easy, especially for a city dweller like him.

The first thing came to Fearless’ mind was magic. Maybe he can use magic? He had never thought about that during the entire time he prepared the funeral service to those 108 souls. He grabbed a magic cane and tried and failed magnificently. He prayed to Sinintee, the god of destruction and civilization, he prayed to Wonten, the faceless god that rule over strength, he prayed to Eogaill the goddess of truth and wisdom, and Fearless felt like he was an adult with a serious chuunibyou syndrome. Then, he hoped, maybe, just maybe, Niwdar the goddess of nature and freedom would aid him, and of course, she did not. Niwdar only answer to the prayers of women, of course, she would not aid him, he should have known.

In the world of Reign of Chaos, there was no teleportation magic, only rare divine relics that granted that effect on a very limited range. From that knowledge, Fearless deducted that the deceased Grayscale mages must have traveled to the tomb of the dark god on foot since he found no horse or wagon around the tomb. And he asked himself a single question, how did these magic casters managed to reach this tomb without being attacked by the spiders? He speculated that the answer to that question had something to do with the stacks of copper gongs with a carving of the Goddess Niwdar on both sides stored in one storage room.

He heard a myth that the spiders were afraid of loud noise before. Maybe those gongs had something to do with the spiders… Never before had Fearless the urge to make a phone call to the Mythbusters to clarify a myth for him as that single moment in his life. He pondered and pondered and came up with no better answer and eventually he said, “Fuck it,” like he always does when making a risky choice.

So Fearless headed North with a magic cane on his left hand, a gong tied to his belly and Enfermé on his right and his bulky pack back behind. He entered that sea of trees, each as tall as cathedrals, with branches spread wide and thick like a canopy made of leaves. He carefully walked using the magic cane as a travel stick while striking Enfermé at the gong tied to his belly nonstop. His eyes darted around, hoping to spot any of those stealthy spiders before it was too late.

And he got what he wished for, he managed to spot a cluster fuck of those fuzzy creepers moving from tree to tree, stalking after him.

He sounded the gong, hard and fast. They halted, keeping their distance from him. One of the buggers decided to break away from its cluster and approached him with unbelievably nimble footsteps, Fearless bang the gong for all it was worth and the bugger bounced away, retreating with creaking footsteps and shrill shrieking and clicking noises in its mouth as if suffering from intense pain. Fearless had never been happier since the moment he woke up in the world of Reign of Chaos. In the moment of sheer exaltation and happiness when adrenaline got the better against reasons, he yelled and chased after that one giant spider, striking at his gong louder and faster than ever, the bugger left its web sack behind and ran along with the rest of its kind. And Fearless laughed. He laughed like he had never got the chance to laugh before. He gambled with his life on the line and won.

When night fell, Fearless decided to camp. While he has learned how to make a fire in the wild, he was never good at it, using the hand drill, the bow drill or fire plow method, he terribly sucked at that. He tried those method before, trying to impress Alice during one of their camping trips with his questionable self-proclaimed man-of-the-wild-skill sets, and after two hours, Alice had enough of her insistent laughter of watching Fearless failed, she decided to use her lighter to start the damn fire instead.

That one embarrassing moment solidified what Fearless has known about himself. His best weapons have always been his silver tongue, his quick wit and his brainless magnum.

A great man once said, with great challenge, come great innovation. Fearless have come to the forest prepared. He chipped and damaged the edge of two knives he looted from the Grayscale mages with Enfermé and transformed the pair of damaged knives into his makeshift firestone.

Fearless put aside Enfermé and his gong, striking the chipped edge of the two knives together to create spark. Then, he heard a small, inaudible cracking of dried leaves. He immediately stopped what he was doing and listened carefully to the noises, darting his eyes around. There was nothing. The forest was dead silent, ghostly, and his eyes could hardly register anything aside from the shapes and shadows of the overgrowth trees.

He felt like something were watching him, but he saw nothing and felt no movement from the surrounding, he wasn’t sure if it was paranoia or whatever it was. A chill surged, ran up his spine. His entire body unknowingly broke into cold sweats. And Fearless stopped thinking, he instinctively dove for Enfermé and sounded the damn gong.

The entire forest abruptly woke up to the gong, the thick branches from above erupted into thousands of rustling noises and the falling twigs and leaves. The atmosphere was drown in millions of creaking and shrieking noises.

They were here even if his eyes could not see them through the veil of ghostly darkness. The spiders never truly gave up, they stayed in the shadow and waited for their moment.

And Fearless sounded the gong for the whole night, without sleeping, he lit up half of the torches he brought with him. When the first sliver of morning sun pierced through the forest, Fearless started walking. He wanted to get out of this accursed forest as fast as he could, he was tired and exhausted, mentally and physically. He still felt a tingling chill rustled up his nape since last night, that tingling chill never truly left, as if there were thousands of starving eyes trained his back, always. His legs hurt, thanks god he opted for a leather boot looted from a deceased Greyscale magic caster instead of using his western shoes. They were one size larger than his feet so he had to wrap a piece of cloth around his feet in order to wear them. His arms ached even more, he switched Enfermé from right to left and left to right again and again while sounding the gong. Fearless had no idea how long he could keep this going, but he knew one thing, if he stopped sounding the gong while still inside this accursed forest, he will be turned into spider’s food.

Fearless kept walking without taking a minute to rest. His Reign of Chaos’ knowledge told him that the Mangora forest was a vast forest and the tomb of the dark god, the place where Fearless began his journey was right within the depth of the forest. He knew it was huge, but he did not know how huge it was. He could not rest within this forest and became exhausted before long. The faster he got out of these woods, the better.

Fearless was grateful for the South pointing compass he found. It helped him navigated through the forest without getting lost. Once in a while, he heard the creaking noises of the fuzzy creepers’ legs, he sounded the gong with all of his strength, most of the time, it was just paranoia. Fearless thought he has got this trip carefully planned out, but only now that Fearless realized that he has seriously underestimated these creatures’ persistence, his plan was full of holes from the beginning. This was not supposed to be a trip for a single person.

And then, the heartless sun sunk into the sea of trees again.

Night time, it was the moment where fear and paranoia become dormant of a person. This time, Fearless was a little braver and more experienced than the night before. He used his limited stock of torches sparingly, lit up the half of the remained torches he had with him while using dried twigs and tree leaves he collected to fuel the camp fire. He chew on the moldy and hard-as-a-brick bread he ransacked from the dead magic casters while keep the gong going. Fearless wetted his parched throat sparingly with his stock of water supply, and he realized that he had depleted a fifth of his entire stock. In his original plan, if he was succeeded to chase away the spiders with the gong, he would have the luxury to forage for food and water as he traveled through this accursed wood. He did not expect that he had to keep sounding the gong without stopping even when he ate or drank or made camp fire.

And somehow, while watching the fire, he dozed off, defeated by his exhaustion.

Something jerked him up and he instinctive started sounding the gong. Hundreds upon hundreds of shrieking noises abruptly exploded from all the directions around him. Leaves fell and twigs dropped. Fearless sounded the gong for his dear life in a rush of adrenaline and the creepers backed off into distant shadows. Fearless knew that he had nearly killed himself by drowsing off. And Fearless breathed as if he was in labor, his entire body drenched in sweat, his heart beat erratic beat. Fearless still can hear the spiders’ shrill clicking and shrieking noises from the distant as if they were laughing.

And he cursed as he bang the gong in frustration, he shredded off his princely shell and he cursed and swore at the stalking creepers in all sort of language, starting from his mother tongue Vietnamese, to Mandarin, French, Russian, English and back to Vietnamese again when his foreign vocab ran out. He broke into tears as he bang the gong. No, he was reduced into tears by the damn spiders. He felt extremely miserable. He did not have a moment of respite to think of Alice or his best friends or his dad or any of his fondest memories to keep himself positive. These stinking creatures denied him of that. It took him everything to keep himself alive from these creepers.

The sun went up once more time and Fearless set north. His legs heavy as lead, his arms a bundle of noodle, his eyes were balls of leads, and the only thing that kept Fearless going was his will power. He walked, never slowed down to rest, never stop. At one point, he could not even feel his legs anymore, like they belonged to someone else, he could not even feel the pain, and yet, he was still heading north. He could still heard the occasional clicking and creaking noises came from behind him, it made him realized that he did not just underestimate them, he had severely underestimated these giant spiders.

This kind of persistency was extremely abnormal for a low intelligent animals like spiders. They kept following him, waiting for an opportunity while they could just give up and search for a different prey.

They were not just all about size, they were definitely smart. They were definitely not stupid from the way they constantly surrounded Fearless. The clicking noises and shrieking that these creepers produced within their mouth, they start to feel less like just some meaningless sound at this moment, Fearless believed that they were conversing and exchanging information with each other. He started to believe that these golden back Mangora spiders, they did not just travel together as a cluster of spiders and used their sheer numbers to overwhelm their prey. This was a pack of intelligent spiders, yes, a pack like a pack of wolves, not a cluster like dumb earthling spiders. That thought brought a dreadful chill to Fearless. He felt that he was lucky to be alive even after making such devastating mistake.

“War is all about preparation, deception, and execution.” That was the words of Fearless’ favorite lecturer when he attended college for a Bachelor in history.

And Fearless, he had screwed up two out of three aspects. He was ill-prepared for this conflict. He was deceived by his opponents’ look, believing that they were just stupid spiders. It was really lucky that he managed to survive thus far.

This discovery made Fearless realized that his understanding of this world of Reign of Chaos was too little and incomplete even after playing it for over a decade. The world changed entirely within Fearless’ mind, it was like that moment when Galileo discovered that the Earth is not flat. Unconsciously, Fearless stopped walking. He stuck his walking stick to the ground and search for the familiar touch of his magic coins in his pants instead. The spiders they spun their web, Fearless spun his thought. The magic coins disappeared and reappeared on Fearless’ hand in repetitive cycles, they were folded into two and then returned whole again without fail. His mind became cold and clear like a surface of a tranquil lake, peaceful and calming, completely devoid of the hapless fear that haunted him for the last two days.

An innocent childlike smile suddenly crept on Fearless’ dried lips. The magic coins, they flew into the air, rotated and the moment they reentered Fearless’ grasp, they disappeared into thin air, this time, never to be seen again. It’s high noon and Fearless decided to unpacked his stuffs for camping. He took out the apothecary sachet that was packed full of lifesaving salves and deadly poisons and expensive concoctions within his large makeshift pack bag. Then he unloaded the bag with the cheap enchanted items and the one bag that was full of essential items. He sounded the gong every once in a while in between his tasks, just enough to remind the spiders that he has not forgotten about them. He heard their morbid clicking voices from the distance and smiled once again.

“Ladies and Gentlemen. I’m thankful for the lessons you have taught me during the last two days. Let me return a favor by showing you a magic trick as a token of gratitude from the very depth of my heart. I promise it will be spectacular and memorable. Please, if you can be patient for a moment. I promise that you will not be disappointed.”

Fearless spoke boomingly with the help of his diaphragm muscle. He stood and bowed with class and style like a performing magician to the creeping spiders that he could not see. He smiled contently when he heard their distant clicking voices and returned to his work, preparing the stage for his magic show.

When the golden Rolex on Fearless’ wrist pointed four, he has completed his preparation for the grand stage. He wiped the sweats on his face and stopped sounding the gong completely.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very thankful for your patient, without any further ado, let’s the magic show begins.”

The Magician grandiosely announced, bowed to his spectators, dropping two clay jars in his hands to the ground and faded into the smoke that the exploded jars created.

 

Chapter 8: Prince and the spider queen

Spoiler

Within the biggest and greenest canopy of leaves, hidden the master of the Mangora forest. She observed the situation with prudent eyes whilst her little children incessantly chattered noisily, the foolish boys asked for her permission to attack, as always the thoughtless fools they were, and the smarts girls would tell them to shut up, waiting for her order.

Strange, thought the spider queen. The lowly and foolish human male that was so full of fear and so little of strength suddenly metamorphosed into something incomprehensive for the queen of spiders. There was no fear in his voice, only confidence, extreme arrogance perhaps.

Had he gone insane from the fear? Or was the fear and misery that personified him in the past days a masterful act?

The spider queen leaned on the former. She could clearly smell the hapless fear trailed behind his footsteps, on the tree trunks he touched and the dried twigs on the ground that he broke.

The pathetic human male has disappeared into the yellow smoke. His accursed instrument sounded no more. What was he planning? Did he think he could win against us all? Have to be careful for his magic. He did not use the power of his gods once. Or was this a ploy for him to run?

Inconceivable. Foolish male, you will not escape my children. You will never make it out of this forest. Before long, you will succumb to exhaustion and became nourishment for my good children.

The spider queen clicked her tongue, ordering her children to tighten the circle and like the good children they always were, they did.

Suddenly, within the yellow smoke, something flew out, small object, spinning, it hit a tree root and exploded in a fiery ball of iridescent flame. The strange flame greedily licked the tree as black smoke billowed. Another explosion, small, the iridescent flame turned red, like a normal flame, and became weaker and weaker as if being extinguished.

What is this meaningless action? Lowly human, do you think you could stop us with a fire so small? Had we drove you to insanity o pitiful human? Poor human, let my children put an end to your misery life and your pitiful struggle. I will be kind. Even though you had torture my ears with that abominable noises of your deplored instrument, I will be kind. I’m the queen of this forest after all. I will show you mercy. I will tell my good children to give you a painless death, and you will feel nothing, no pain, no suffering, foolish and pitiable human male.

The spider queen ignored the small fire and turned her eyes at the fading smoke the human created. It was fading quickly but the queen could make out the shape of some strange object in the midst of the smoke. She told her children to stop their slow advance and observed the situation.

A hut? The human male pitched a hut in the middle of the smoke with his magic stick. What are you trying to accomplish inside that hut pitiful human? You used your only weapon to pitch a hut? O pitiful pitiful human, let my children undo your insanity and end your misery.

A sudden noise, loud, the master of the forest instinctively covered her ears. Her children had the same jerking reaction, bracing their entire body to accept the pain to come.

It was that accursed instrument again, pitiful human, you don’t know when to give up.

The spider queen gritted her teeth to endure the pain, and she discovered, there was no pain. She could not feel the hateful pain that grated her entire body as if tearing her soul asunder. That pitiful human was playing his damnable instrument and yet there was no pain. The queen suddenly realized that and so did her children.

“O pitiful human male. Has your only hope abandoned you? Has your accursed goddess forsake you? Bemoan your fate, not us. Pitiful human, you are truly pitiful until the end,” the master of the forest cackled and her children laughed.

And the human as if he understood that his goddess had forsaken him, stop playing his instrument.

“Good children, end the human, be quick and merciful,” the queen commanded. Her children leapt out from their hidden places with their web orbs. They pounded their webs over the hut, spinning it around and around before sinking their venomous fangs into the giant orb of web. And they turned at the spider queen looking confused.

There is no human, the boys said and the girls repeated.

“What do you mean there is no human? He is inside the hut,” the spider queen became confused in turn.

The human is not here, the girls replied and the boys reaffirmed.

“He is inside that hut,” the queen shouted, breaking off her calm and majestic queen-like demeanor.

O queen, there is no human, the boys laid flatly to the ground, groveling in their timid voices.

O queen, the hut is empty, the girls kneeled with tearful eyes.

And the spider queen was beside herself with utter confusion. She crawled out of her hidden place, swung her tethered web strings and landed herself to the ground. Her powerful spider legs creaked as she walked toward the giant web orb her children weaved. She could still smell the thick scent of fear of that pitiful human male’s sweat inside the hut. She stabbed her powerful foreleg into the ball of web and felt nothing. The queen did not understand, “Unbind your web,” she ordered.

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What the fuck is an Arachne doing here?

Fearless wordlessly screamed the moment he saw that creature appeared. It was not supposed to be in this place. The leader of these golden back Mangora spider was not a Mangora spider but an Arachne.

In Reign of Chaos, the creature that was Arachne was a race of monsters dwelt in a secret settlement on the long continent. According to the lore, the progenitor of Arachne was a beautiful female dark elf Arachne once. She was famous for her talent to weave the most beautiful tapestries and carpets in the world. In her arrogance, she claimed that not even the gods and goddesses could match her talent and create something better than hers. The gods and goddesses of Reign of Chaos took offense to that, and they sent Eogaill, the goddess of truth and wisdom to challenge Arachne, teaching the dark elf to know humility. Arachne and Eogaill had their little contest and as they challenged each other, they found themselves equal until Eogaill fell short of the challenge in the end. In their contest, the two found that talent and experience had triumph wisdom. The gods were outrage, and they sent Niwdar next, the goddess of nature and freedom herself. Arachne found herself unable to match Niwdar’s creativity and ever changing tapestries no matter how many time she tried. As Arachne groveled in her defeat, Niwdar placed a powerful curse on Arachne and transformed her into a hideous monstrosity to live the rest of her life in that form as well as her descendants.

Unlike the other incarnation of the Arachne of other fantasy fictions which had a humanoid torso of a human attached to the lower body of a spider, the Arachne in Reign of Chaos was depicted as having the body of a dark elf connected to the torso of a spider from its waist, thus having the complete form of a dark elf as well as the arachind torso and eight arachnid legs.

The appearance of this Arachne had thrown Fearless’ plan out of the window. He was hoped for a large Mangora spider to appear, not this monstrosity. But this Arachne, it look strange, it did not have the flowing dark hair or the tanned skin or the silver eyes of a dark elf. Instead, this female Arachne had a glossy white cascade flowing to her waist, her skin so fair and pale, and her eyes like rubies lodged within and even her spider body parts were a milky white.

Fearless thought that the monster was beautiful and even his brainless magnum voted for that. The brain dead bastard, it made him teared up, he felt like he was the very epitome of lust itself to lust after a monster while trying to form a new escape plan inside his head through the touch of magic coins.

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Her children did as they were commanded, rolled and spun the giant web-ball to unbind it. A strange object fell off the ball and rolled on the ground, the spider queen picked it up.

What is this strange object?

The spider queen held the strange object in her hand and pondered. It was not an enchanted item, there was no trace of mana ever imbued into it. A metal tablet? It was gilded with silver on one side whereas the other side was black and dark like obsidian but glossier. She touched the smooth surface of the strange tablet and it suddenly flashed up.

The spider queen instinctively let go of the strange object and leapt away. Nothing happened. The strange object did not explode, it bounced off the ground and stayed right there, its previously blackened side lit up. Slowly and carefully, the spider walked toward that strange object. She gingerly poked it lightly with her foreleg to test its reaction. There was no heat. It made she looked ridiculously foolish in front of her children. The queen picked up the strange object once more time. On the brightened surface of the tablet, there was a painting depicted that pitiful human male with four other males all smiling.

What kind of magical artifact is this? Why can’t I sense any trace of mana imbued inside it?

The spider touched the bright surface of the strange tablet again with her hand. The painting disappeared to be replaced by a different picture this time. The picture contained nine rings of circles and the word “Password”.

What is this strange thing? The queen pondered.

O queen, the children said, bowing, signaling that they have completed their given task.

The spider queen turned her sight on the opened web-ball, there was nothing but an empty hut. The queen stood without making any movement. Her mind was a tangled web of confusion. She could not understand how the human male was not inside the hut. He was supposed to be inside the hut. He was playing that damn instrument of his until her children immobilized him with their webs. The tablet on her hand flashed again, the picture of that human male, smiling and faded to black.

“Are you mocking me human? Is this your idea of mocking me human?”

The queen laughed. Her face dyed in the color of shame and anger. She laughed manically as her children all knelt flatly to the ground, prostrating in utter fear.

“Find him, catch him and deliver him to me alive. I shall make him suffer,” the spider queen hissed and her children, they scampered away in all directions in hope of finding that human male, leaving the spider queen behind, alone with anger and shame.

“I shall make you suffer human,” the spider queen gritted her teeth in the seething flame of anger, the strange tablet completely crumbled into pieces in her hand.

“Oy, what the heck? That’s my phone.”

The master of the Mangora forest jerked in surprise, turned to the direction of that voice and she immediately discovered that she was held at knife point.

“No, what have you done?” the human bellowed in a sorrowful voice as his strange looking sword placed on her neck.

The spider queen went stiffed. In her head, there were thousands of questions to be answer, and yet, the white glint from the blade held at her neck froze her on the spot. She realized that the thing was a powerful divine relic, and not the average enchanted item. However, she could not figure out what properties it possessed.

“Stay still. I would advise you against doing anything foolish. This sword in my hand even though it does not look like it, it was made in the First Age by one of the greatest titan swordsmith ever. It cut through steel like nothing. I only need to flick my wrist lightly and your pretty neck will say goodbye to your body. And I really hate to do that,” warned the accursed lowly human male, “Do we understand each other?” and he asked with a toothy smile.

“How? How did you escape from that hut?” the spider queen asked. Her thought kept coming back to that.

“Is that a yes or a no? I don’t really understand Arachnid tongue. It sounded like you are just clicking your tongue and grinding your teeth to me. If you could be so willing, please lend me your pearl of universal wisdom. All of the Arachne had one, right? It would make our conversation become more meaningful.”

“How? How do you know about that? That is a secret among our people only,” the queen became outrageously bewildered.

“Oh, it’s a common knowledge, don’t be surprise about something so trivial,” the human male arrogantly replied. He should not understand what she was talking about and yet he did, somehow, “Now, would you rather part with your pearl of universal wisdom or your neck? And please don’t tell me that you have given that to someone else already because I would hate to cut open your throat to verify the truth,” said the human as he pressed the point of his razor sharp blade against her neck.

The spider queen felt a sharp pain on her neck where the blade pressed against. A hot liquid rolled down her neck and smeared her chest in red color. Her entire body broke into cold sweat. She was extremely reluctant to part with the pearl. The pearl of universal wisdom is something of extreme important to any Arachne. It allowed the Arachne to immediately learn any kind of language they listen to for the first time and become fluent with it. And the pearl held a deep-seated and utmost sacred meaning to the Arachne than anything kind of wealth that they could possess for many other reasons.

“Pearl or neck, pick one,” human hissed coldly, pressing the sword into the spider queen’s neck. Her neck felt like it was branded by fire.

And the spider queen gritted her teeth in seething anger. She took a deep breath and swallowed her pride. Her spider legs are strong, but they can’t be faster than the sword pressing at her neck. So, she can only wait. In her mind, the moment her children come back for her, they would turn this situation around. She would take back her pearl and tear this lowly human apart after making him suffered the most excruciating pain that a human could taste. She opened her mouth and showed the human pearl at the tip of her tongue.

“Thank you,” the despicable human male said, taking away her most precious treasure just like that, he put it inside his mouth, “Great, now we can have a real conversation going,” nonchalantly said without an idea of what it would mean for her to separate from her pearl, without an inkling understanding of what that thoughtless act meant to an Arachne.

The pearl of universal wisdom was a gift from the goddess Eogaill to the progenitor of the Arachne out of respect for her talent according the oldest Arachne minstrels. Every Arachne was born with a pearl of universal wisdom hidden within their secret sack inside their throat. And when a male Arachne fell in love with a female Arachne, he would bow to her, giving her his pearl and asked for her pearl in exchange if the female Arachne deemed the male worthy of courting her.

She felt extremely humiliated. Never in her life had she tasted such humiliation. Worse, it came from a lowly male human. It was like adding salt to injury. The spider queen felt her anger rise, and welcomed it like an old friend. But she contained it, bottled it deep down to wait for her moment of victory to present itself.

“Ah, before that, kneel,” said the human.

“Huh?”

“I said kneel. I am your captor and you are my captive, that’s our current relationship. A captive should never look at the captor from a higher position or equal. So kneel.”

The spider queen glared at the insolent human male with indignant eyes. No female Arachne had ever bowed to a human or a male of any species under any kind of circumstance.

“Kneel or die. Your pride or your life. Think carefully and pick one. You have already given me your precious pearl what’s so difficult about kneeling?” the human chattered.

Still she would not bend her knees to a human. An outcast among her kin she was, but she was still an Arachne in shape and heart. Her pride as an Arachne would not allow that. Kneeling to a human would be where she drew the line. The spider queen clenched her fists and prepared to accept death with her pride as an Arachne.

“If you choose death, it would mean your precious pearl would forever be in my possession. However, if you are able to keep your life intact for the moment, maybe, you could have an opportunity to take revenge on me in the future and take back both your pride and your pearl,” the human reasoned, “Think and choose wisely. It’s not that hard to kneel to a human.”

She had never been so humiliated, the spider queen thought. She closed her eyes, imagining the satisfaction when she reversed the situation and unleashed an endless world of pain on this lowly male. And so the spider queen bit the inner part of her lips and bent her knees to the hateful lowly human male.

“Really, you make me feel like I’m a villain here. Stop looking at me like that. It makes me feel bad,” said the human male in the most affectionate voice as if he tried to console her. He rummaged his cloth with his free hand and produced a small bottle. He popped its cap with his thumb and a strong smell emanated from the bottle, “Don’t worry, this is a healing salve. it’s not poison. If I want to kill you, I would have done that with my sword instead,” the human male explained as if he noticed her discomfort. And he slathered the cold and sticky substance on her neck where he wounded her. The human male then produced a beautiful piece of fabric out of nowhere with his free hand which really surprised her, how did he do that? Magic? What god allowed a human to do that? To create something from nothing, and even without any invocation and mana, that’s unfair. As the spider queen was still beside herself with surprise, the human male used that gorgeous looking piece of fabric to wipe away the blood trail on her body, starting with the dripping blood on her navel and up to her neck. As he wiped her blood, his hand accidentally touched against her breast which made her entire body quivered to an unknown feeling.

“Hey, don’t move. My sword is still placed on your neck,” the human male warned and just focus on his job, wiped her clean of the blood stain. Once he was done with that, he stashed the stained red fabric into his pocket like an item of extreme importance. Did he order her to bend the knee so he could tend her wound and wiped her blood? That would not make her lightened his punishment and when her children got back. Maybe she would spare him from a torturous slow and painful death like she has initially planned, just maybe.

“You have humiliated me like this, lowly human. So now what? What do you want to talk about?” the spider queen taunted.

“What is your name?”

“You put me through all of these kind of humiliations just to ask me of my name?” the spider scowled with pondered eyes. She did not expect such question.

“No, I just want to know your name before we can start a proper conversation. What is your name?” the human male insisted.

“Does it matter?” the spider queen stared into the insolent human male’s eyes and inquired.

“It’s important to me,” the human male replied in the most earnest voice.

“Ilivardary Kront'tarr. Queen of the Mangora forest. I will allow you to call me Queen Kront'tarr,” she regally declared her name with pride.

“Iliva, then,” the insolent human male nodded his head, affirmed. The earnestness in his voice completely disappeared like it was never there, to be replaced with arrogance and insolence.

“How dare you? That’s a name only for the closest people to my heart to call me, not you,” the spider queen angrily hissed.

“Look around us, there is nobody but you and me. Who else but me stand the closest to your heart in this very moment?” he retorted as if she said something strange.

“Foolish male. Don’t you know what a metaphorical expression is?” Iliva seethed. Her anger seemed to origin from the fact that somehow, the human male’s argument got a point.

“I understand perfectly what a metaphorical expression is. Thank you, you don’t have to explain it to me. So, Iliva, can you tell me why you are completely naked like this? Don’t most Arachne weave their own cloth? Why are you naked like this? Don’t you feel embarrassed?” the human male asked, staring intently at her voluminous breasts.

“Why should I be embarrassed?” the spider queen indignantly scoffed. The question was beneath her regal stature.

“Are you telling me that you feel nothing at all even when I’m staring at your tits right now?” said the human male as if he was shocked to his very core.

“Do you human get embarrassed being naked in front of insects?” Iliva sneered mockingly. A regal smile floated on her lips

“So you are telling me that you consider those spiders of yours as nothing but insects?” the human male tilted his head, confused.

“I’m obviously talking about you. Are you so stupid to not realize that?” Iliva was beside herself with anger and she roared. This human male kept getting on her nerves. He just had that talent to pull the wrong nerve every time.

“If I’m just that stupid, what does it make you then? You got fooled by me into revealing yourself and then got miserably captured by me as well. And I was prepared to gamble with my life on the line to capture you and hold you hostage in front of your spiders. I did not even expect you to be so stupid that you would tell your spiders to leave you here all alone to look for me. That is like the dumbest decision a person could have ever made,”

“…” Iliva gritted her teeth in unrepressed frustration and could not come up with any counter to that. She was thoroughly shamed by this lowly human male. She has decided to not skip the torture once she reversed the situation.

“Cat got your tongue huh? You dumb exhibitionist. Okay, Iliva, next question. You are obviously very far away from home. You are not supposed to be here. Your home should be in the long continent. Why are you here?” he asked

“Why are you asking me this kind of question? What does it has anything to do with you? If you have something you want to ask, ask away, and stop wasting my time.” Iliva flared up. Her fists clenched tight and her arachnid legs dug into the ground.

“I’m sorry. I must have touched a sensitive topic to you huh? Was you banished by your own kin?” the human male apologized.

“How do you…?” Iliva gasped and looked at the human male with new found surprise and anger.

“Really? Damn, I got it right with the first guess. This must be my day or something.”

“…”

“So Iliva, can you tell me why you was banished?” he asked in a voice full of concerned but of course, Iliva knew that he merely pretended.

“…”

“Oh, playing the silence game now. Okay, let me guess. Did you murder someone important from the settlement?”

“…”

“Wrong huh? Okay, did you rob someone or steal something important from someone?”

“I’m not like you lowly inferior human with no principle and pride. We Arachne had our own pride. The reason I was banished from my village is because of my appearance,” Iliva, the spider queen bellowed.

“Your appearance?” the human male examined her figure carefully with his eyes that was as dark as obsidian, from her hair to her chest and down to her secret garden.

“Hah, if you want to mock me, mock me” she snorted.

“Okay, Allow me get this fact straight. So, you are banished from your settlement because you are too beautiful?” he asked, his head tilted, confused.

“Are you mocking me human?” Iliva flared up. Her face felt hot with anger and shame.

“Did I get anything wrong?” the human looked at Iliva as if he did not understand her question.

“You call this sickly pale white skin beautiful? You call this chalky white hair beautiful? You call these blood red eyes beautiful?” Iliva challenged and looked into the human male’s eyes, allowing no falsehood. Her shoulders quivered uncontrollably

“…yeah… am I wrong?” and he asked, looking confused as if he wholeheartedly agreed to what Iliva has just said.

“I am beautiful?” It was Iliva’s turn to be confused this time.

“Easily one of the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. As long as you are not shoving your spider part to my face.”

“Are you mocking me human?” Iliva asked the human again. This time, her voice was completely devoid of anger or shame, just plain confusion and uncertainty.

“Do I look like I’m mocking you?” the human male pointed at himself, deadpanned.

“…No…but … hmph…you are just a lowly human, what do you know about beauty?” Iliva suddenly found herself flustered, her voice rasped. Her face still felt hot like it was burning, but not with anger or shame this time. Her face burned but the fire was fueled by some kind of emotion that was unknown to Iliva.

“Oh, I beg your pardon. My ability to appreciate beauty is better than most people and definitely better than your entire fucking Arachne race. In fact, after talking with you, I believe that they should all start poking their eyes out because if they can’t appreciate beauty for what beauty is when they see it, they don’t need their eyes inside their eye holes. You are the very personification of beauty, well, minus that spider parts of yours because I don’t have any spider part on me so I can’t really appreciate them with my atheist sense. But I think I can live with that with time,” the human male animatedly jabbered, anger emanated from his body.

“You are just an inferior human… Hmph… you will get nothing from flattering me,” Iliva hummed and broken the established eye contact with the human male.

It was that time, Iliva saw the human male flared up for the first time.

“Are you fucking stupid or what? You and your god damn spiders chased after me for two fucking days without giving me a moment to rest. You bunch make me cry like a bitch. That was the first time I have ever felt so humiliated. And you just broke my phone. Who does that? Even the most extreme paparazzi I have met did not do something like that. Even my most crazy girlfriends did not do that, and when I meant crazy, I meant batshit insane and still they did not do that. You made me go through that kind of craps. Why do I have to flatter you?”

“…Sorry?” daunted by the sudden temperamental shifted, Iliva let it slipped in form of a question, unsure if that was the correct answer.

“You better be,” and the human male took it as Iliva has just apologized to him.

It was then, Iliva heard the distant rustles of tree branches, and she grinned widely, “Do you hear that human? My children are returning to me. Return my pearl, put your sword down, grovel to me, beg for my forgiveness and I will let you walk out of this forest alive.”

“You are a really fucking moron if you think that the situation will improve for you once your spiders get back here. Are you just a pretty face and no brain?” the human fired back.

“Are you complimenting me or are you insulting me?”

“I am obviously insulting you, you dumb woman. You have already lost this battle. Don’t you understand?” the human male exasperated.

“You are just bluffing. Grovel to me and beg. I will be kind and forgive your insolence.” Iliva advised.

“Okay, dumb woman, you call this bluffing?”

And the human male did something Iliva had not expected. He retracted his blade and daringly moved away from Iliva.

It took a full two second for the utterly confused Iliva to comprehend the implication of the human male’s action.

“Hah, you are really stupid. I give you the chance to live and you don’t even know how to take it. Now die,” Iliva raised her powerful arachnid foreleg like a blade and pounced at the human male.

And she froze right in her track, unable to move a muscle.

“What? Who’s stupid? What are you doing? Hit me, come on, hit me. What? You can’t hit me? Don’t be too scared. You are a big girl. Hit me. Hit me. I won’t hit back. I promise” the human male was full of opening, his arms spread wide and inviting. He patted his own chest, daring Iliva to strike her powerful leg through his rib cage, “Hit me. Come on. Oh, now, you have finally realized you can’t hit me. Took you long enough, you dumb woman,” he taunted, showing Iliva’s pearl in between his jaws, threatened to crush it, “The very moment you give me your pearl, you got no chance of winning this. Why else did you think I use this sword to nick your pretty neck and make it bleed? It makes me feels so bad when I thought I might have scarred your pretty neck. But you know what? My life is more important. As long as I managed to make you give me your pearl, I can get out of this forest alive whenever I want. Hphm,” the human sarcastically hummed at the end.

“You coward…despicable human male, you don’t play fair.”

“Thank you, that’s the best compliment a schemer like me could receive from someone he has defeated. And since you have just compliment me, I will do you a favor.”

“What? You are going to return my pearl?” Iliva brightened up.

“Are you really that stupid?” the human male mocked, “No, I’m talking about your spiders. I will let you save some dignity and face in front of them. Tell them that you will let me leave this forest alive, and tell them to be good kids and stay right here and don’t follow me. You get to decide the story however you want. Also, you will stick with me until I get out of this forest like a good girl and I might consider returning your pearl.”

Iliva mulled for several seconds and asked, “Do you promise that?”

“I promise” the human male replied.

And that’s how the spider queen ended up following a human male to the edge of the forest.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Some times after Iliva managed to convince her spiders to stay back whilst she traveled with Fearless to the forest edge, Fearless had a small discovery.

He noticed a hallucinating screen of some sort inside his head, invisible to everyone else but himself. It was the familiar level up menu in Reign of Chaos. Immediately, Fearless identified his previous conflict with the spider as a military conflict, and his pact with the spider queen as a military negotiation; and thus by resolving them, Fearless himself was recognized as a military officer in the world of Reign of Chaos and gained EXP.

It took a while before Fearless understood how to access to that menu without mouse and keyboard. Fearless managed to access to his character sheet. The first page was the character Biography like it always was in Reign of Chaos.

It read:

“Fearless, Phúc Đ. Bạch, August 21, 2045- April 1, 2072

A tribute to the greatest Reign of Chaos player of his generation and perhaps the greatest Reign of Chaos player to ever picks up a mouse and keyboard. He has inspired a generation of people to fall in love with ROC with his love for the game, his great personality, his work ethic, his love for the community and his unique play style and for that, he will forever has a special place in our heart.

A seven times World Champion, five times MVP, four times Final MVP, and twelve times All-Star, and holder of numerous individual awards, a champion among champions, he is one of the main driving factors that leads to the Greatest ROC dynasty The Alliance’s unshakable dominance for over a decade. People grow old, but Fearless, his achievement and legend are timeless.

It’s the only justice that he had a place in a world where he has devoted his entire life for. For that, with unanimous votes from players all around the world and all members of the developing team of Reign of Chaos, he will be immortalized within the planet of Escana as one of its inhabitant. May he continues to live, finds happiness and inspires people as he did to all of us.”

What is the meaning of this? What the fuck is this? This can’t be real. Fearless turned the next page. It displayed a table:

               Fearless/Human/Male/ Warlord <Level 2>

MIGHT   18 (+20)
LEADERSHIP 84
POLITIC 75
CHARISMA 90 (+10)
INTELLIGENT 87
WISDOM 101
What is it? This cannot be true. I’m dead. Stop joking. What the fuck is this? People don’t die from a glass of cocktail. People died when they are killed. Again Fearless turned the next page.


Perks:

-Champion of champions: Eligible for any military or civil position to gain EXP

-Philanderer: Can engage with multiple opposite sex characters at the same time. Can reverse the <Marriage> status of any opposite sex character to <Single> to form marriage pact.

-Harem Prince: Can form marriage pact with multiple warlords of opposite sex regardless of races.

This cannot be true. Please tell me that this is a dream. I can't die.

Fearless could not bring himself to turn the last page of the character sheet. He was in utter shock and despair.