“Good, the first one’s here,” Dangard emerged from behind the orges’ backs, examining the landscape. “so where’s the other one? Dolgusha! Come out! Let’s talk!”
“I have nothing to talk to you about,” the druid’s answer seemed to come from everywhere at once, as though she had surround-sound speakers. “Let Yari go and leave us in peace! The ogres can’t help you!”
“Come on, sunshine.” Dangard was obviously not afraid of the druid. The mage was calm and determined. “You know very well that I cannot do it. Why do we need extra problems with our teachers?”
“I promised to Yari that I would get him out of the Academy,” came the answer. “I am used to being true to my word. One punishment more, one less… Archibald will be unhappy in any case. I am not risking anything. As for you...” Dolgunata laughed trillingly, “How long can you hold Sakhray? How long can you resist me? The necromancer is not here – no one to suppress me. Shall we play?”
“Find her!” Dangard lost his calm and his demeanor changed. I didn’t like the changes, however: instead of becoming nervous, jumpy and indecisive, the mage now looked like an experienced warrior preparing for deadly battle and not willing to give up even an inch. Two ogres rushed off in different directions, swinging their clubs around and plowing the earth with them. Apparently my kidnappers thought that the druid could be anywhere. I shifted my eyes to Sakhray and could barely hold back an exclamation of joy‒the druid’s eyes looked normal again, and he was actively getting rid of the plants around his legs. They had stopped being aggressive‒ Dolgunata had deactivated them.
“You have no power over me!” The mage, standing next to me, suddenly made a hoarse sound and fell to his knees. Dangard growled, mumbled something, pushing against the ground, but still held on.
“GARGGH!” An ogre’s thunderous roar sounded from the right, and immediately the thug faded in the air. Dolgunata, sleek as a cat, jumped down from where his huge back had been, squatted and looked slyly at the monster who was holding me.
“You are mine!” she purred, and at the same time the other ogre’s wild low yell came from the left. Sakhray had killed the other defender. Dangard was still pretending he was a plough, trying to resist Dolgunata, who, swaying her hips, was approaching us now. “I always wondered, why are ogres immune to control? Poor imagination? Lack of brain power? Surprise me, Nurlag. Why did you decide to join the mages?”
“Stand where you are,” growled the ogre. “Or I’ll destroy him.”
“With what? Your weak little farts?” The druid grinned not even thinking of stopping. “Yari has leveled up his defense to level two at least. Remember how long he held on every time before respawn? Ten mages could barely breach his shield. You think you have become so tough that you could kill him before I get to you? You dirty douche bag.” Dolgunata came so close that she kicked the bleating Dangard and pushed him over. Bending over the mage, she grabbed his head and then yanked; it looked as though she was about to pull his thinking implement off completely; she pulled Dangard to her eye level, showing her formidable strength, and whispered:
“You are mine! You have always been mine! You always wanted me! If you relax you’ll get what you want! I want you! Give yourself to me! Accept me! Be mine!”
The ogre stood motionless, and watched silently as his potential employer was turning into a puppet. However, my guard did not release his hold; he was still keeping me above the ground and blocking access to my artifact.
“If you want to be with me,” Dolgunata kept breaking Dangard, “you’ll have to forget about Yaropolk. This Paladin doesn’t exist for you anymore. Work on your teacher’s task and leave Yari alone. Then you’ll have a chance. Now you will wake up and will go about your business and will leave us alone.”
The druid snapped her fingers and the mage’s eyes cleared. He looked in bewilderment at the ogre, Nata and myself, grumbled something like “some people don’t know what they are doing”, and without bothering to say goodbye rushed off somewhere to the right as if the best delicacies in the world were awaiting him there. For the mage we didn’t exist any longer.
“Let him go, Nurlag,” Dolgunata calmly addressed the ogre as soon as Dangard disappeared beyond the crest of the hill. “What’s the point of dragging him to the Chancellor if he needs to go there anyway, and will perfectly well walk there on his own feet?”
“You killed my warriors!” The ogre didn’t give up, but his grip loosened somewhat. I could breathe easier.
“Those two weaklings?” The druid’s eyebrows quirked up. “As if you cared about them! Don’t frighten me pretending you have become an eager supporter of your class‒ it’s been a hard day as it is.”
“Why did you let Dangard go?”
“Because otherwise he would’ve come back in an hour and started hunting us. While now I have at least five hours before he overcomes the hypnosis. Yes, I know he will; I taught him myself after all. Let him go‒ there are no more enemies around. Only friends.”
“Head hunters have no friends,” the ogre chuckled, almost making the hilltop shudder and unclenching his paws, letting me crash to the ground. “They have enemies and future victims. Hello, little breakneck! Long time no see!”
Stepping over me the ogre buried the druid in a hug, like an old friend! She did not resist, moreover, responded in kind, throwing her arms around the ogre’s trunk-like neck and closing her eyes with pleasure.
“Nurlag,” the druid chirped joyfully, as if she really had encountered an old friend. “I am so glad you are in this enrollment as well! Also because of the Paladins?”
“It seems we’re all here ‘cause of them!” Releasing Dolgunata, the ogre sat on the ground and set the club behind his back. “You understand that you’ll have to kill me?”
“Of course, in a couple of minutes. Even you wouldn’t have been able to resist me longer than that. But I am so glad to see you! Remember Zhardan?”
“Him and us against a hundred cannibals?” Nurlag brightened, and his face took on a dreamy expression. A dreaming ogre would be one of the last things I would ever want to see in this world. Slowly, trying not to draw any attention to myself, I crawled backwards until I hit an obstacle. Lifting my head I met the eyes of the grinning Sakhray. He shook his head negatively and pointed at Dolgunata, suggesting that I should join the druid. “How could I not?! I still have the head of their chief on my wall at home! Such a nice trophy – warms your heart with memories to look at it! Why do you need the Paladin?”
“I need to take him out of the Academy. Too many people want to keep him here, so I want to prove to myself that it’s possible. Dangard with his pit-bulls, Zangar, you, Salvar with his hunters … Of course, if he were the main target, at least the reason for such close attention would be clear. But no, there were people continuously milling around a simple uninitiated Paladin, so I was interested: why do you all need Yari?”
“I have no clue‒ I am doing what the teacher asked me. Helping the mages. I’ll try to hold my guys back,” Nurlag rumbled. “But I can’t promise that I’ll be able to do it forever. We are mercenaries, and a granis for a Paladin is too tasty a bait to neglect it. Are you taking him to the Chancellor?” He nodded towards me.
“Sure, but a little later. First we need to finish with the teachers.” Dolgunata grimaced. “Damn, they have guards everywhere…”
“Here’re the coordinates. He’s one of the optional but interesting teachers. He teaches invisibility, but it eats up Energy like a vacuum cleaner. Dangard doesn’t know about him.”
“What do I need that for?” Dolgunata frowned but then immediately beamed: “Right! Nurlag, if it all works, I owe you!”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” the ogre looked down. “Tell me later how it goes. Time, Nata. If we linger, there might be questions. Just do it quickly. See you later.”
“See you later, Nurlag,” Dolgunata purred, turned into the panther and separated the head‒the ogre tilted it back‒ from his body with one neat mo
tion of her paw. “Thank you; you are not an enemy …”
“Excellent performance.” I rose to my feet as soon as the only ones left alive were the two druids and me. “Please explain what is going on!”
“Later.” Nata cut me off. “Sakhray, put him on your back. We need to get out of here. First we’ll teach him invisibility, and then we’ll decide what to do next.”
A hit on the head made the stars whirl like crazy and fade to darkness. The druids didn’t bother wracking their heads over convincing me to go with them, following a simple rule: when someone is unconscious, you can do whatever you want with him. For example, take him to any place you need.
Learning progress: You have reached teacher 10 of 12 (+2 optional teachers)
Invisibility turned out to be an ability unrelated to class and available to anyone. The main prerequisite was the availability of an energy shield, on top of which a special field formed; it fully absorbed the light from one side and let it out on the other side. As the ogre had warned, the requirements for using this method were simply crazy: one minute of invisibility ate up 50 Energy units, plus extra for activating and maintaining the shield. After half a year in the training range I was able to lower the cost of maintaining invisibility to 40 units, but even so it was extremely high given how slowly the Energy replenished. If Dolgunata had not returned to me the two elixirs, I would have never dared use it in the Academy‒ the potential consequences were too unpleasant.
“You have two more teachers you need to train with‒ armor and general abilities, “the druid deigned to conversation, once I stepped away from the teacher, hidden in low grass. I wonder how did the ogres get to find him? “First we’ll go to the armor one.”
“I am not going anywhere until you explain to me what’s going on.” I cut her off, activating my defense. Just in case Sakhray decided to hit me over the head again. “Only this time I want to hear the truth and nothing but. We have a Contract‒ remember that.”
“As if I cared about your Contract!” Nata snorted. "Zangar clarified to me that the standard contract had a clause referring me to a Judge, so even if I were to breach it, the Game would do nothing to me. It would ask you to choose a punishment. And what can you do? Announce again that I should be killed? Remember, no one has responded to the first verdict yet. Why do you think anyone would now? In the whole Academy the necromancer is the only one who could actually kill me; all the rest have neither the strength nor the ability to do so. So don’t aggravate me more than you have to, please, by mentioning it. I am already wanting to kill you for the trap.”
“But it was really well designed,” Sakhray inserted, stretching luxuriously. “We could use it in the future.”
“It was designed like normal,” Nata waved her hand. “A standard trap, one of the simplest. If I could fly or jump it would have made no sense. Anyway, forget it. As to what’s going on: I am in exile here. Archibald was displeased that I lost the tournament. Said it was pointless to train me any further as a minion; I had reached my limit. Then there came news that Paladins were selected as a sacrifice and he ordered an increase in the number of people of his class who would complete the Academy. In addition, a target was selected who was supposed to complete the Academy at the first level. That’s my test. I can’t tell you who it is, but it is definitely not you. The mages have a similar task‒ theу also have a target who’s supposed to complete the Academy at level one. The rest is just collateral damage from the main task. All this genocide is for fun, nothing else. As for you: Dangard was playing with you. Devir said in passing that ‘it would be preferable not to kill Yari before he gets to the wastelands’. So in the forest they didn’t bother you much, letting you do whatever you wanted. But here they started after you in earnest. As for me… Archibald had said that the more you’re put into a difficult situation, the better you develop. My task was to get in the way, provoke, kill, but not too much, do whatever in order to continuously keep you in shape. As you can see I was doing it well. You had reached level 15, received the attributes’ stone, a load of granises, found elixirs, managed to lose your hand and your glove somewhere. By the way, I’d like to hear that story. And I know that you had no information about the Academy at all. You can safely consider that whatever you have achieved here is to my credit. My provocation is your development.”
“What is Zangar doing here?” I tried to dampen my emotions to the extent possible to avoid attacking Dolgunata with my fists. Blasted provocatrix!
“Controlling fulfillment of the task. The mages must do whatever his teacher needs. Who if not the cynocephalian is in a position to check the quality of task execution? Besides, the mages are players who have to do everything themselves, and Zangar would retain his spotless reputation and receive his blessing from the Chancellor. The local boss likes them Light and clean.”
“Why in hell does he need Marinar? Why is he troubling himself with her?”
“I have no idea. On the face of it they look like a happy couple, but… you’d have to know this necromancer. He has no emotions at all, only calculation. For some reason he has messed with her head and keeps her close to him. It’s not clear why, but definitely not just so. If you manage to find that out, I’d be glad to hear the answer to that. Because I don’t know it myself. Are you happy now? Or did you want to know something else?”
“Why did you return for me?”
“Because I want to prove to myself that Zangar and Dangard, not even to mention Ahean, of whom I haven’t heard lately for some reason, would not be able to interfere with me. They want to kill you‒ I will try to pull you through. To spite everyone. After the Academy we’ll do a couple of dungeons together and will never hear about each other again.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because you have no other choice,” Dolgunata said harshly. “Whether you want it or not, I’ll make it so that you complete the Academy. You want to croak – go and do it in the main world. Enough talking – let’s go deal with your armor.”
I didn’t believe a word of Dolgunata’s little speech. How should I know? Maybe it’s a clever plan by Zangar and his team to have me finish training with all the teachers on my own, and arrive to the Chancellor all ready. However, Nata is right: it’s not like I have a lot of choice. I need to train with these two teachers in any case; this would give me an option to leave the Academy. Then afterwards I could make the final decision about what’s more important to me: to quietly leave and forget about the Chancellor’s gift and his quest, thus screwing over the necromancer, or to risk it and show up at the Chancellor’s, where both Zangar and Marinar were now.
“Another question.” Before mounting Sakhray’s back, I looked at Dolgunata. “Will you be able to beat Zangar?”
There was no answer, but for the twenty minutes that we rushed towards the next teacher, the druid’s catface looked contemplative. Before I made a decision I needed to know: is Dolgunata capable of beating Zangar, and would she be willing to do it? Because I really had no intention to forgive the necromancer for such a frame‒up. Besides, he and Marinar were the only ones who knew that I had Madonna’s notes. Gromana didn’t count. Somehow I couldn’t believe that Zangar’s teacher would greet the holder of this book with a hearty welcome. Rather he’d kill me and forget my name. Therefore I needed to solve this issue here and now. I should keep in mind that this couple of traitors were not initiated.
“Yari‒ the three on the right are yours,” Dolgunata whispered, assessing the lay of the land. Thanks to invisibility, we managed to come extremely close to the teacher, passing by the obstacles represented by several groups of guards, but as we came right next to the teacher we encountered a surprise: twenty warriors and hunters as well as a couple of mages. We happened to arrive just as the guards were changing: one dozen of guards was replacing another. Nodding silently, I activated my artifact, drank one of the last two remaining Energy elixirs, put on invisibility and rushed towards my targets. The time of the nice Paladin was
past. Now was the time of the mean Paladin.
“…No one is going to show up, but keep your eyes peeled!” I heard one of the grinning mages say when, without delay, I activated the attack and drove the spikes of the Book of Knowledge straight into his eyes. Crit! The body of my enemy had barely faded into the air when I proceeded to the warrior. The enemy, covered in armor, was impressive, but I had an advantage of surprise attack and there was Dolgunata. As I hit the first time, the druid tied her enemies up with the grass, preventing them from moving; thus, the warrior could not use some of his warrior abilities. Besides, he had no weapons, only his own fists. With a nasty squelch my spikes pierced the player’s armor at the third strike – that was how long his defense held. I was lit by lightning: my third victim, the mage, caught on quickly and attacked. I grinned: the emotions of fear and despair of the players who died or were dying were so intense that my Energy bar did not go down by even one notch. I was sure that even invisibility – that was lost with my first blow – would have been free to me now. I didn’t have to wait long to check: I activated invisibility and stepped to the side, allowing the mage to look, wide‒eyed, at the place where I had just stood. The Energy bar twitched down, but immediately jumped back: the loss was offset by inflow. I slowly circled around the mage, who was looking around frantically while trying to untangle his feet from the grass‒ and drove my spikes in at the base of his skull. I felt no other emotion than anger. I was so used to killing players that I perceived killing just as a given. Invisibility dissipated again from the blow, and an arrow ricocheted from my defense shield, striking sparks: one of the hunters switched to me. Knowing very well that the druid didn’t need much help as she had already killed a dozen players and was dealing with the rest, I rushed towards the shooter who attacked me. I wanted to take my anger out on someone. I ran at the player, toppled him to the ground with a flying kick, and sent him for respawn with the next move, habitually driving the spikes into his face. Amazing how effective that method was! A system message flashed on reaching the next level, but I ignored it. There would be time to rejoice for level 4 later. Not wanting to delay the group, I turned away from the fight and approached the insipid old coot, indifferently staring at the carnage as if it was no concern of his.
The Beginning (Dark Paladin Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 44