by Han Yang
I vaulted myself from the deeps to the shallows, and in that simple moment, the matogators grew worried. Whatever monsters the depths contained, hadn’t killed me, and now I pushed them inland.
I waited, expecting to see an alpha challenge me, or for a mad rush to scamper by me. Instead, they stood there shocked.
I approached slowly, not needing to skulk. The matogators backpedaled, retreating into their slumbering area as if trying to hide under the canopy of the jungle.
Interesting.
I continued slowly until I reached the tree line.
The second, and I mean the instant, I stepped to enter the tree line to find an easy target, a few things happened.
The momma gators challenged me, the males pretended to back them up, and the juveniles raced for the water. I hopped back, swinging my club down at the smaller waddling gators who raced for the beach.
Squish!
A ten-foot adolescent burst in a spray of gore from my overpowered swing. I jerked the club up, dropping the hefty object onto the back of another matogator.
Crack!
The spine broke, a horrendous whining shriek escaped the creature.
I shifted to find another gator to kill and found myself too slow. The young were in the water, and the parents were still in the trees. Taking the lesser of two evils, I charged the shallows.
The gators spread out in panic, jerking their tails rapidly as they gained distance. I swung the club down directly onto a bigger adolescent.
Splash!
The water burst, sending water up high and a jarring sensation through my arm. When the water cleared, a stunned but alive matogator kicked ineffectively, trying to get away.
I swung harder, determined to kill it.
Splash!
Argh…
I growled in frustration, seeing that not only did the creature still live, but I was wasting my time with a club in the water. Calming my nerves, I tossed the weapon onto the beach.
When I grabbed the animal, it kicked slightly. I maintained a firm grip around the skull with one hand and held the body with my other hand.
Applying a slight twist, I heard a tear instead of a pop.
Hmm…
The head came free, completely separating from the body.
Right… I was a massive undead skeleton. My hands were just as deadly as a club.
I tossed the body onto the shore and darted into the water. When I crossed the shallows for the drop off, the gators kept swimming away. I caught one, vaulted back to shallows, and then applied less pressure for a clean kill.
Onto the beach the corpse went. The commotion stirred something from the depths. Bubbles near the furthest gators agitated the surface.
I hesitated, not daring the deep with this clear signal. A long tentacle lashed out, wrapping a gator. Serrated claws were mixed with suction cups to ensure the prey didn’t escape.
The animal fought the grip, rotating to bite the slimy flesh.
A fifty-foot long head erupted from below, creating a large splash and a gush of water. A beak snapped shut, ending the brief fight.
The gators grew terrified of what I assumed was a kraken, rushing for the shallows where I stood.
I contemplated fighting the kraken, I really did. If I had a spear, I figured I could. That beak would likely break bones, but the tentacles would make the fight easier. Plus, the reward might be worth the effort. However, with my bare hands, it was doubtful.
In the end, I picked the easy road, plucking two gators out of the water and smashing them together.
Their gore showered down until it slicked the water. The stain of red drifted further out to sea, coating the surface with blood.
A second kraken appeared, smaller than the first. That was it for the gators. The dozen or so left alive swarmed to get back to the adults on the beach. I killed six more by simply snatching them off the top of the water and then breaking their bodies.
A few returned to the tree line, escaping my new method. I went to the beach and sat. The gators behind me weren’t going anywhere. I reached down, hurling the head from earlier far out to sea.
The distant splash attracted the krakens. The swirl of water told me they hungered for more.
I had a hunch about the food chain.
The small fish ate the insects and the plankton the island produced. The brownies caught the fish. The gators ate the fish and the brownies. I saw ruined, small rafts on the beach. The big fish and the sharks ate the brownies and smaller fish. A third and fourth kraken told me there was a healthy fear of monsters in this area and krakens were plentiful.
What ate the krakens?
I waited patiently, not seeing anything breach in an epic display. Without any fanfare, the krakens retreated to the depths after ten minutes of nothing happening. I had to remember there was nothing that could eat an orca in a bite and the food chain always had a top.
Maybe the krakens were the apex of the ocean. Anything bigger would result in ships going down easily.
I’d see if we could find some larger metal support beam to create a spear to fight the krakens with. Then I glanced over my shoulder, seeing the cowering gators hissing at me to leave their beach.
Why fight the giant leviathans when the large gators died so easily?
I crawled to the tree line, the females getting aggressive. I closed my fist, deciding to use the bottom edge of my hand as a club.
When I neared, four females charged. They were the only ones with the courage to assault my gigantic frame. I played whack-a-mole, bopping each of them hard on the head.
Sickening snaps told me I was crushing their skulls.
Deciding to take a risk, I let a gator clamp onto my pinky finger. A hard twist resulted in a pop. I quickly killed the audacious creature and snapped the finger back into place.
I proceed to slowly and methodically kill the swarm of gators. They only backed up so far, fearing the inland more than me. I guessed they didn’t realize I was the cyclops that used to eat those who ventured into the interior.
I left the eggs alone for the next generation and in case we wanted them.
When I finished, I instructed Sprinkles to head to the next area then wait for me to return. I didn’t trust him in the deep water on his own. That and not every section of shore would be the same.
I left his body, soaring across the landscape until I zoomed back into my tent. When I entered my body, it was well past lunch, and my stomach rumbled.
Asha sat at the desk, writing something.
“Afternoon,” I said.
“You sure know how to make a mess,” Asha said.
“For certain. I’m famished,” I said, hopping off the bed.
I tossed my feet into my sandals, peeling back the tent flap. A large fire in the distance crackled and popped, the heat radiating across the landscape.
Closer to the tent, a small fire roasted white, fluffy meat. Nee, Tarla, Bell, and Delsy sat on a bench, watching the meat cook.
“I see you found the mollusks,” I said, doing a double take. Yup, that was Bell. She smiled happily. “Bell, glad you could join us. What brings you through the portal and to the island?”
“Your success is being celebrated and Nessio has gone into a reclusive state. She’s not even taking visitors. I could have tossed a rock through for that tidbit, but I came because Caitlyn visited me, and the scouts have news. First thing first. You’ve reached your allotted space in her treasury. Ten thousand Z,” Bell said, pointing to the hundreds of dead birds, shellfish, and brownies all piled in different stacks.
“Half a Z each on the shellfish and you harvested almost a hundred!” Tarla said happily.
“Those were the small ones too. But… The krakens might be a problem if I don’t hop in and out quickly. I think the eighty plus matogators per nesting site will be safer,” I said.
“Yes, well, now that you’re rich,” Nee said, bringing me a stick with succulent white meat on it. “What is your plan with all this Zor
ta?”
“Ah, well, if I gave a thousand to the goblins and ordered it to -” Nee trembled, causing me to halt mid-sentence. “You okay?”
“You’d do that?” she whispered as if it were insane to even make such a notion.
“Sure, this trip is going to net tens of thousands of Z,” I said proudly. “Upgrading a key aspect of our army is vital.”
Bell cleared her throat. “I came for a second reason. There is a human army in Ikara Valley, and they have a minotaur contingent. Ten thousand strong at least, and they’re heading right for Seqa Valley. King Karn is not in the formation, but his son’s banner is.”
“Ah, the big battle nears,” Nee said, as if she were a prophet.
“Interesting. And our scout on Selma’s end?” I asked.
“Two goblins disappeared, and a third said he barely escaped a trap of webs. We expect them to not welcome our scouts into their lands, but this could be an escalation. Selma may have scryers,” Bell reported.
I used the front of my sandal to play in the dirt while I thought.
Asha came out, handing paperwork to Bell. “My recordings about the animals of this isle. I also would invest in the goblins. One thousand is too light. And get your necromancer to five,” Asha recommended.
“I’m so sick of hitting mana exhaustion mid-fight, it makes so flipping useless,” I said between bites. “What’s our count at?”
I saw Lumpy prancing with a still very alive viper in his jaws. Tarla blasted a ball of fire.
The twisting inferno of magic splashed into Lumpy killing the snake and covering my minion in soot.
“Bad Lumpy! I told you three times now. Kill the animals!” Tarla scolded, using her mom voice.
I snapped my fingers then snapped some more. The idea came to me, right as I had a mouth full of calm stew. I swallowed quickly and said, “That’s it. Oh, you glorious succubus you!”
“You’re a succubus now?” Bell asked Tarla with a raised eyebrow.
“I’ve been doting on Damien. He loves me, and I’m expressing my love in a language he understands,” Tarla said in a proper tone.
“Amazing sex,” I blurted, and she groaned, rolling her eyes.
“What was the sudden thought you had?” Nee asked with a grumble.
She sputtered her lips and grumpily folded her arms across her chest.
It was my turn to roll my eyes.
“Hey, don’t feel down that I don’t want a second lover. I accept you as my goblin queen. You run my goblin faction well and will continue to do so with others giving you children,” I said, and Nee smiled happily. “The idea was that we build a pen, I break the spines of matogators over the next two days and collect them here. Then, when there is less than a day, I kill them all and toss them in.”
“Yes!” Delsy cried. “I can fill my roster with skeleton gators.”
“Yup, it won’t break the 150 on that door either,” I said, thumbing the portal. “It’ll take a whole lot of work, but it’ll be worth it in the end.”
“I see a few problems,” Bell said. “The dead gators arrive small and then expand the second they can. We’re freezing the meat in abandoned warehouses and those are filling up. I…” She tapped her chin. “Maybe if we stack them in the streets, but even then, where do they go next? They’ll ruin farms. And how do you use the portals?”
“I’m thinking beyond the portals. We have a huge victory here, and we should be happy. However, we can’t fight that army with a thousand troops. We need an army of our own,” I said. “Maybe fourteen hundred matogators will be enough. But yes, not long-term residents of Seqa for sure. Also, the portals were never meant for a necromancer, clearly with their limitation.”
“Are you going to do it then?” Tarla asked hesitantly. “You are committing to necromancer five?”
“Yeah, I guess I am. We won’t have enough to bring everyone back from the dead. I might have enough to go home with Tarla, but I’ll kill a lot of these dwarves and gnomes in doing so. I feel we can defeat this army and gain our Z in surplus,” I said, my voice growing more confident even if butterflies swirled in my gut.
Bell eyed me speculatively. “Just so we’re clear, you want to invest in the here and now?” she asked. The hint of excitement on her voice was contagious. “If you restore one of these minions or invest five thousand more Z into the church, I become a high priestess.”
“I need a thousand or two to finish my upgrades across the board,” Tarla said.
Nee cleared her throat and said, “A lot of us goblins are young, but the old crafty ones, they could soak up hundreds of Zorta each. We’ll take every bit ya got.”
Asha huffed and said, “Five thousand to become necromancer 5 and then you need to kill twice as many gators that you maim. Also, upgrading them all will have an impact on bone density.”
“What’s the tally?” Delsy asked, repeating a question that missed an answer. “The cat brought the live snake, and she went all whoosh and ate my fireball, the little bitch.”
I snorted with a head shake of dismay. I couldn’t hold it in, peeling out a throaty laugh. The absurdity of the statement left me in stitches.
“12,722.224,” Bell said. I instantly stopped laughing. We all did. “That was as of a few hours ago. I tried to deposit yesterday’s earnings this morning and ran into Caitlyn's banking issue.”
“We still have more brownies, snakes, clams, and now gators to sort too,” Asha said, his tone dry.
“Damn,” I muttered. “So much work to do. I’ll take five thousand now. A thousand to Tarla. A thousand to Nee, which I better hear was divided properly. Seven hundred to the trolls, dwarves, and others who follow us. That leaves -”
Bell interjected and said, “Five thousand in church upgrades.”
“Yup. I’d like to recommend a bigger portal but use your discretion,” I said.
“Ouch, but yes, the other upgrades offer less value. Ideally a defender would be nice, but we’re short. Nee, if you’ll follow me, we have work to do. Expect your six thousand to come through in a bag in a few minutes,” Bell said, all but dragging the goblin leader.
Her stun wore off, and she skipped at Bell’s side. I watched the odd duo vanish into the portal. Asha waited by the golden shimmer, snatching a large bag out of the air a few minutes later.
He opened the bag and handed a single orb to Tarla. That would be an even thousand. I focused on my center, staring into the bag of colorful orbs. I reached out to the group of orbs, ensuring I only selected what was in the bag.
Consume 5032.22 Zorta (YES) - (NO)
I selected yes.
I pulled up my necromancer upgrade.
Necromancer Level 4 -} Necromancer Level 5 = 4,972.113 Zorta. (YES) or (NO)
I selected yes again.
I expected a slight shiver. Nope.
A rent in space and time appeared over my head, exposing a frigid cold that I could only assume was space. I’ll be the first to admit I wanted to run like a frightened child.
Instead, I froze, literally and figuratively. The void of space locked me in place until the blackness consumed me.
∞∞∞
I awoke next to the fire, frosty air escaping my lips. The warm blaze and the warm evening air told me hours had gone by.
“Crap, what happened?” I asked between shivers.
Tarla rushed over from her bench, covering me in kisses.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
“Your reaper…” She paused, sucking in a deep breath. “He changed you. It was not fun to watch. We were frozen, unable to react. You were frozen, peeled apart, and put back together after your internal orb was modified.”
Her shudder was warranted. I opened my arms, and she folded into them.
“Are you okay?” I asked, ignoring the others who watched us. She balled up, nestling into my chest. “I got a whole lot of work to do if we’re going to defeat Toneba.”
“You think that’s who is coming?” Asha asked.
&
nbsp; I nodded. “I fear he is coming and not for the Z he can garner, but because of what I am. So yes, I think the champion of Arax is coming with an army at his back.”
CHAPTER 55
Town of Seqa
“What the hell, Caitlyn?” I exclaimed in dismay.
Magic, an unknown and new type of magic had modified me, shrinking everything inside the big warehouse - including me. The process had been disturbing and nearly instant.
Gathering my senses, I glanced down and saw I stood around my minions, atop a stack of items and animals. The interior of the church was packed full. I returned from the island, and arrived on top of a gator corpse, which should have never happened.
I glanced around, seeing Tarla and Asha arrive, their outlines sticking at the portal. Both shrunk before leaving the golden device, their bodies enveloped in a purple magic before becoming tiny like me.
“You have reached church capacity. Items are being downsized for the next 23 hours. Failure to remove the excess will result in the church’s destruction,” a disembodied voice said.
I climbed over the dead gators, heading toward where I figured the exit would be.
“Let me go first, Boss,” Asha said, his tone on edge. “Something clearly is not right.”
My minions were already proceeding over the top of the downsized gators, hurrying for the door. The only thing keeping me calm was that I didn’t hear combat or anything else to be concerned about.
It was possible we had simply filled the city.
Over the last two days I had killed almost four thousand more matogators and scraped off ten thousand barnacles. The loot was insane. There was so much, I literally had to consume fifty-five thousand Z…
We simply lacked the manpower to drag it all home or to even force every orb to drop. I only slept four hours a night and became ruthless as the time crunch became an issue. My determination to succeed drove me to this point.