He surprised me for the third time that day. He smiled. Not in a creepy way, in a happy way. "Five thousand each police officer, about fifty thousand each reporter. And I have been blackmailed twice already by political enemies."
"Why are you smiling?"
He laughed. "Don't you see, you idiot?"
"See what?"
"You are indeed our son."
"Huh?"
"Power, you imbecile. Power is in your blood; it runs in your veins. You cannot run away from it. I know exactly when you first met the scourge you call friends: it was the night you introduced that girlfriend and saw her accept money to never see you again. You ran away from home and were mugged by a rival gang, only to be saved by the one that would become yours. You really believed I had no one following you?"
I was at a loss for words.
"And five months later, you were the new boss. Your mother and I taught you well enough. You can run from me, but you cannot run away from who you are."
"Don't be ridiculous, father. I did it because I wanted to."
"You did it because that's all you know, all you are, what we made you into. Because that's your instinct. You can't help the urge to become powerful, to rule, to crush your enemies. They are stronger than you are."
"No," I said less firmly than I wanted to.
"Did it feel good? To feel their blood on your hands? How is it, to give orders and know you will be obeyed? The fear and envy in your so-called friends' eyes as they submit to you? To decide how many people will be attacked and hurt on a whim? To be at the top? To have power?"
I got up. "I know what you're doing. It won't work."
As shaken as his words made me, I had been trained well enough to not show it. And with that thought, I knew he was right. I couldn't help doing it.
"I am new money, but your mother told me her parents raised her the same way we are raising you. That she felt the same revulsion you do, but in the end, she accepted her destiny."
"That's bullshit." I was nothing like mother. Nothing.
"That's who you are, son. Do you remember the day I ordered you to beat your bully tormentors at school? What were you, eight? Nine? How did it feel? There was so much anger in you when you left this room that I feared for their lives. A broken arm, a broken leg and seven teeth. Did that feel good too?"
My aunt had stood with me in my room as I cried myself to sleep that day.
But it had felt good.
"Stop." I felt the anger build up.
"Just remember: that's you. The real you. You can't run from it. You can try; your mother said she tried too. It won't work."
"I said stop!" The hatred was increasing. I didn't want to hear that.
"I'm not your gang member, boy. You can't shout me to silence. I will keep talking about your love for power-"
"Stop or I will-" I interrupted, screaming.
And he got up and screamed too. "You will what?" I recoiled. "You will beat me? Crush me? Show me who is the most powerful man in this room? Yes." He lowered his voice. "You will, won't you? That's what you are, after all."
I considered it and was about to punch his face when I realized it: that's what he wanted.
Plus, he was my father. What would my aunt say? No. I'd not bow to his whims.
Another part of me also remembered that if I touched him, I didn't know what he'd do to my aunt. I turned back and walked to the door.
He laughed again. "Yes. Just like we taught you. If you see an opponent that you can't beat, retreat. Take your time, make yourself stronger. And when you finally attack, be swift and thorough."
Slamming the door behind me, I went to my gang.
That day, we crushed our biggest enemies.
When I got back home, it was all dark, and the cook was already sleeping. I went to the kitchen, fried some eggs on the stove and laid in bed. I couldn't get any sleep.
It was almost morning when I decided to take a bath.
As soon as I closed the door to the bathroom, my house exploded.
* * *
I woke to what experience had taught me was the sound of something trying to move silently in the water. A quick check showed me barely an hour passed since I began to sleep. Short naps were a common occurrence in the cursed lands I now called home.
The smell of moisture and greenery slowly gave way to a faint scent of wet pelt. I did my best to not move, lest I be attacked before I was ready. I was sitting on the ground, my back touching the plant festooned cave walls and my shield covering both my body and my sword. My backpack was inside my purse.
From my experience in the last week, wet pelt meant either cave bears or corrupted wolves. I had found fighting wolves in Valia a much more traumatic experience than in other games. As much as I wanted it to be a bear, there was no way in hell a bear would be that quiet.
I heard more movement, much closer this time. Whatever it was, it had probably scented me by now. I opened my eyes.
Twenty points in intelligence – eighteen natural points and two from the enchanted belt – allowed me to summon six morbs, and all of them were already up. Thankfully, sleeping didn't make them go away, or I'd have died multiple times already. Five of them were fire, and one was death.
Greenery and dirty water were everywhere. The enormous cave that was now my hideout was a swamp. The floor was covered by at least half a meter of water, and multitudes of small 'islands' were everywhere. No trees could be found, only thin-stalked plants that still managed to grow meters and meters above water somehow. The place was cold enough that even being a cold-blooded creature, I was feeling chilly.
What I liked the most about the place was that there were so many plants all around that it was impossible to see more than twenty paces ahead. Whoever wanted to hunt me would have a hard time finding me here. Even if they came, there was no way in hell they could get close to me without making any sound.
Something moved behind some leaves, in more than one place. That confirmed that these were wolves since bears hunted alone.
Firmly gripping my sword, I leapt up and held my shield before me. I was in an optimal position, with the wall behind me.
They didn't move for a long time. My naked feet – all my equipment below the knees and the elbows had been eaten by the beasts – were standing on sharp rock, but I didn't dare to get more comfortable. The wolves were smart, and if I moved now, they would surely use the split second I was off balance to attack.
Eventually, one of them left. That made me even more tense, and sure enough, two big black wolves jumped on me.
111 fire + 8 burn damage dealt to Young Corrupted Wolf (119 total)
HP: 905 / 1024 <?>
The damage message repeated itself five times. I had halved one wolf's HP before he was on me. Instead of blocking them, I crouched and thrust my sword upwards.
85 physical damage dealt to Young Corrupted Wolf
HP: 348 / 1024 <?>
Seventeen points in agility, eighteen in dexterity, nineteen in strength and a lot of combat experience. All of it made a huge difference. First time I had fought a single wolf, I had almost died when it pinned me to the ground. Now, I could dodge and counter-attack at the same time, and hit the mark while doing it.
The one I damaged hit its head on the wall, and I knew it would be out of the fight for a few seconds. The undamaged one used the wall to pick up momentum and jumped on me. I put a lot of raw power into my legs as I blocked the wolf with the shield.
Status effect resisted: Overwhelmed
I pushed the shield to the side and attacked the first wolf again, both with my sword and a newly created morb. It whimpered and ran away, disappearing in the foliage.
Shit. I wanted the meat.
Putting my back to the wall again, I prepared for the second wolf, but he was also gone. They hunted in packs and had only been pups. The one who had left before the attack had been the pack's alpha.
The wolves in the swamp had been using me to test the pups since the day I
had entered the place. I had killed plenty, including a few alphas, but they just kept coming.
I loved it. It was perfect for my training.
In my mind, I called that place the Hell Course Swamp. Oversized alligators, anacondas, annoying small monkeys, spiders, swarms of scorpions. I had to kill them all on a daily basis and use the moments between attacks to meditate and recover MP.
Which I did now. Sitting in the same position I had been before, I closed my eyes, paying utmost attention to every little sound, every water drop, every leaf crushed. A second of distraction could mean death and even the peaceful sensation that came with the meditation didn't make me completely relaxed.
Ted's voice had been my only companion the last week. She kept me posted on the news and one day ago she had told me the civil war in Dakar was in full swing.
I sighed. The girl had to do everything her own way.
She had lost the bet with Bear and was learning archery from an NPC. She refused to admit it, but she liked the bow a lot more than her daggers. She had told me once that seeing the spectral metal penetrate her enemies' flesh and kill them up close was a little disturbing.
To kill everyone that I wanted dead, I'd either need a lot of gold or allies. I had neither, but allies were much easier to come by. Ted didn't know this yet, but she was the first I would secure.
She laughed in my mind. I still found it unsettling.
It was as if a big lamp lit above my head.
She took a while to answer me.
When my mana replenished, I started to walk to the swamp entrance, never leaving the walls. On the way, I saw the tiger family that lived there.
The female was white, my height, and had blue eyes. The male was half again my height and as black as the night, with yellow eyes. The black tiger was laid down looking bored while white one was with its belly to the air, playfully biting the black one's ears.
Close to them, playing with five scorpions as if they were mice, was the black and white striped baby tiger with green eyes.
The black one raised its head when it heard me, but it just watched me pass by. They were the only beasts in the whole place who hadn't tried to kill me, and I was damn happy for it. I had once seen the female kill two packs of black wolves – thirteen in total – by herself while the male yawned.
When the baby tiger saw me, he let out a half-meow, half-roar and came in my direction. He sat right in front of the path I was walking and looked at me with demanding eyes, his tail waving slowly.
I sighed, opened my purse and took a dead wolf from there. I only had five of those – four, now. Still, pissing off the tigers wasn't in my plans.
I threw the carcass to the side, and the baby happily helped itself. Even the black tiger came over to eat, watching me with penetrating eyes as it got closer. I had tried petting the baby once before and the roar the black tiger let out had put me in a dazed status for half an hour.
Quickly moving away, I got back to walking.
5 piercing damage received
HP: 615 / 620
Status effect received: Mildly Poisoned (level 2)
For the next 1 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds:
» 10 acid damage per second
I felt the sting of the small scorpion in my foot and screamed in pain. I killed it with a single swing of the sword and looked around. There were no other scorpions nearby.
These damn things were the main reason I had so little wolf meat with me. Taking out one of the wolves' corpses, I helped myself to it. It tasted like Japanese food. About twenty bites later, I got the message I wanted.
Status effect received: Powerful Corrupt Healing (level 4)
For the next 4 minutes, 49 seconds:
» 20 death damage per second
Each wolf body only lasted for about two scorpion stings. The problem was that the scorpions appeared from the ground out of nowhere and made no sound. It was impossible to prevent the poisoning without boots, and mine were gone.
So were my metal greaves and vambraces – both the ones I had got in the Great Maze and the training ones Daggers had bought me. I had considered using Daggers' stuff, but in the end had decided against it. They would just get destroyed, too, and taking damage seemed to help raise my constitution faster, anyway.
More wolves found me on the way out. Seven times in less than two hundred meters. I was also poisoned twenty other times by scorpions; thankfully, they only reset the poison timer instead of increasing the damage. Ted explained to me that it was because of my undead status.
At one point an alligator bit my leg and threw me into the water. I bent my body and thrust my sword at the damn beast's eye until it died.
And that was just a typical day in the swamp.
Constantly struggling for survival just after becoming my true self again had been an incredibly freeing experience. It made me think clearer and act more focused. It didn't completely quell the guilt I felt, but it quelled my self-destructiveness.
Thanks to that, I had reviewed all my actions since entering Valia and reali
zed Eternal was a liar. I didn't know what his agenda was, nor even if he was my enemy, but he wasn't a pure mage as he had led us to believe. He was something different: a charisma-focused character.
It all went back to a few key moments.
The first had been when he had asked me what my core traits were. There was nothing wrong with that, but right before that, he had acted surprised when I told him I was an adept controller.
The way he talked about it as if it was something unique and unexpected, had led me to reveal I had an unusual title. I was sure now that he had been fishing for that all along.
The second moment was when, right after he told me about the core traits, I detected the holes in the conversation. The way his high charisma worked was not by truly making my mind ignore the holes, but by making me very distracted. Sounds in the cave seemed louder, and anxiety consumed me when I had tried to think about that while I was next to Eternal.
The third moment was when he traded the belt of intelligence for the ring of charisma. No mage would ever do that.
Why had he done those things? I had no idea. But he was someone to be careful about.
The most significant realization I'd had was that Daggers had been right: I had been acting like a child.
There had been so much anger inside me trying to get out but being forced in, that I had just begun to self-destruct. The way I was acting just after entering Valia and the way I had started to behave as the days went by were completely different.
Now, I wanted to kill and destroy, and had only 'cured' myself thanks to these intense feelings. Perhaps the women I'd used had been right: I was all kinds of messed up.
Between battles, eating and meditation, it took me half a day to get to the exit tunnel, but I finally succeeded.
The tunnel was straight, half hidden by greenery, and extended for a few meters. I took the opportunity to meditate and wait for the poison to go away. Two hours and a half later, I exited the swap, with a half-eaten, scratched, pierced and dirty equipment. Wet and dirty defined my existence.
Unbound Deathlord: Challenge Page 42