Professor Pawnsworth was currently in the middle of the first day of his summoning course or what he liked to call the first week of the course summoning for dummies.The reason for that was that devoted the entire first week to drill the bare bone basics into the skulls of his students.
Why? Simple because if some dumb student tries to summon a salamander but doesn't use the right pronunciation causing him to summon a higher demon instead that then goes on a rampage across campus. Who will people blame? Yes that's right they would blame him Hector J. Pawnsworth the most renowned summoner of the Imperial University and that's why he was currently in front of the blackboard teaching his students the ABC of the border tongue.
The language they would be using in their summoning rituals to conjure their servants and often to communicate with them or more commonly simply give them orders.But as important as this knowledge was the professor was very aware of the fact that it was a very boring subject for his students and he couldn't even blame them, even he was bored out of his mind on the first day. So he threw a quick glance outside the window to gauge how much time he had left and by his estimate there was still enough time for some fun.
After all his students hadn´t uttered a single groan when he explained what they would learn today and were even now still paying attention as they went through the ABC for the tenth time.He could almost see the halos over their heads as they tried their best to not fall asleep and so he decided to reward them.
"So anybody got a Question about anything in particular, like for example what you are not allowed to summon under any circumstances and why?" he asked, wearing his best poker face.The students simply stared at him for a few seconds unsure of what to do. Until a brave elf girl raised a hand and asked "Like the Berserkir?"
Pawnsworth grinned and couldn't stop himself from getting excited "Yes Miss Bohun like the Berserkir but first let me ask you what do you know about the Berserkir?"The girl seemed surprised "Uhm I know that they look like large bulky elves with round ears before their transformation and some say that they have a larger variety of skin colors than us elves as well, but I don´t know if that is true or not."Pawnsworth nodded "That is indeed correct but also somewhat underwhelming so I´d like to add that the both genders of the Berserkir stand on average almost a head taller than their elven counterparts and the males often bet the dwarves in terms of the sheer amount of muscle mass they can have. Which means to many the Berserkir look like the result of the unholy union between elves and dwarves."
"Who in their right mind would even believe that to be true." One of the students yelled disgust and disbelieve dripping from every word, while some of the other students seemed to have a hard time keeping their lunch in their stomach just at the thought.But that was to be expected after all that's what always happens when he told his students about that theory. "I know I know it sounds ridiculous, but in the universe very few things are impossible.The expressions of unadulterated disgust on the student's faces told him exactly what they thought about that.
"Anywho, I still have to say that it's quite disappointing how little you know about the Berserkir but I guess there's a reason why the average elf knows so little about them. Well I know just the way to fix that, anybody interested?"
The students just stared at him wide eyed, probably asking themself what had happened to the old goat that had forced them to learn the ABC just some minutes ago, but after a few seconds they started raising their hands."Excellent now let this old Elf tell you all the Story of how Duchess Alcina Strathmore killed Empress Lucrezia the Second and got away with it."
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Alcina´s family was once the most influential nobel houses in the entire Empire. Only the royal family could really even rival them when it came to wealth and influence.But that is the thing they once were the most influential nobel house. Now thanks to pretty much every neighbouring noble house and the royal family, Alcina´s family had lost a lot of the wealth and territory they had once called their own.The "mastermind" behind that had of course been the royal family, because the house of Strathmore had simply become too powerful and therefore too big of a threat to the royal family to be allowed to exist.
Which was the reason why Alcina was currently in a Courtroom being held responsible for her and her family's "crimes" against the royal family. All of which were of course fabricated by either the neighbouring noble houses or the royal family.The "crimes" ranged from stealing from the royal family to planning to usurp the royal family. All of these claims were just ridiculous, because the house Strathmore had always feared that this would happen as even in the past they had been very influential on account of the fact that their territory was bordering the territory of the Dwarven Kingdom and so they became the first line of defence for the Empire. Because of that the family spawned many of the most famous knights of the Empire and was regarded as practically invincible when they fought in their Territory.
This was back in the day when the then Elven Kingdom had started to expand northward by giving the land to knight houses in the hope that they wouldn't immediately be killed by the dwarfs or the monsters that lived in the north.The surviving houses that had managed to atleast build a keep were given the title of baronet and some ressources every year to keep them going, but only three houses managed that.The house Strathmore was the most lucky of all of the houses, because the land they were given had many ore deposits and thanks to that they were able to attract a lot of manpower. Most of which was of course miners searching for riches but also entire miners guilds with their entire families and so a lot of villages simply sprouted from the ground and soon the merchants followed, because there was a profit to be made.
After that the royal family bestowed the title of baron upon the Strathmores and they just kept growing more powerful with time.
Mostly because the neighbouring dwarven clans didn't really like the fact that their neighbours sat on quite a large amount of ore deposits and sent raiding forces into elven territory to weaken them, before the real conflict started.This conflict barely lasted two years as the dwarfs simply wanted to settle a grudge but it still left the other two houses of the north in a worse state than they had been before and that would only continue.
Because the hatred between elves and dwarfs was one of the true constants of the world that would never change.Meaning the conflicts and skirmishes just kept coming, leaving the military of the other Houses ever weaker, while the Strathmores managed to retain theirs. Until they were wiped out by the dwarfs and the royal family gave rest their territory to the Strathmores, as well as the title of viscount.They did this so that the noble houses of the south had no chance to fight over the territory and the title was given to the Strathmores because no mere baron can have that much territory.
This however was just the start for the Strathmores as over time one by one the Knight Houses of the north fell under their rule, because of their achievements in the many conflicts with the dwarfs and with the ever growing territory came ever higher titles until the Stratmores were the ducal family that ruled the north.At the same time they tried everything they could think of to make themself as useful to the royal family as possible, because they knew that their rise had been a little to fast even for them and that there were quite a few noble houses that disliked them for that.
(But in the end the efforts of three generations wasn´t enough to convince these vultures and it all started when that bitch became empress.) Alcina couldn't help but grind her teeth at the thought.
(Once she was on the throne we had to deal with twice as many bandits as normal and they were of course paid by the neighbouring noble houses and they just didn't stop. Spreading rumours, releasing enraged monsters in the middle of towns, sabotaging any attempt of northern merchants to do any business outside the northern regions or even stealing weapons from the northern army nothing was beneath them.)
(I had no other choice but to ask the royal family for help, if I wanted to sort this out quickly and without any bloodshed. But the bitch only demanded that I ask properly by kneeling before her and begging her to help. I knew then as I looked at the sadistic grin on her face that she had been the one that was behind all of this. Why I did not know at the time. But it had hardly mattered to me because after I realised that I simply left with her promising me all the way that she would teach me my place. Not a week later I received a letter from the royal palace that informed me that my entire family had been accused of treason and that I was expected to appear before court. The accusation was just so ridiculous that I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. After that had passed all I was left with was rage, because I knew that it had already been decided what would happen to me and my family.)
Alcina closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself as she returned her attention to the flock of laughing vultures that surrounded her and to the bitch on her throne sporting the same sadistic grin she had worn when Alcina had asked her for help. (Just a few more minutes and then you won't be laughing anymore.) Alcina thought as led one of her fingers glide over a rune in the silver bracelet she wore. It was warm which told her that the teleportation spell would soon be ready and then she would have her one chance of saving her family's future.
Her plan was risky to put it mildly but it was the only choice she had. If she wanted to save her daughters from slavery, her husband from becoming the bitches sex toy and herself from becoming the slave of the bitch, then she had to kill the bitch and all the other nobles in this room.
If she managed that everyone of her enemies in the Empire, because the bitch had made sure that they were all present for her "Trial", would be dealt with and when the bitch died one of her Sisters or Brothers, that Alcina hoped were more reasonable, would take her Place. But the most important part was that this would weaken the Empire ever so slightly, as the noble houses that had lost their matriarchs or patriarchs would need time to declare a new one thanks to the usual power struggles.However that period of weakness would be short, but the dwarf would find out about it one way or another and then they would try to exploit it.
This would then raise the value of the Strathmore family so much that no person would try to get rid of them and remember that fact for a good while.
Of course this would only work for a time until someone tried to punish the Strathmores for killing an empress. But it would buy them time to work something out so that at worst they were exiled. But there was a problem. It turns out that it's not that easy to kill an empress and an entire room full of nobles, which were all at least somewhat magically talented. Then there are also the royal guards that would make that task even harder.That's why it usually takes up to a century of planning to assassinate a member of the royal family, because there have been enough people that have tried to and quite often they succeeded.
Which then led to the royal family improving their security and thanks to that the last successful assassination had been five hundred years ago.
It didn't help that mages that could use teleportation magic, the best way to get assassins into the palace by trading places with her, were quite rare and were kept under surveillance by the royal family, because magic that allows somebody to bypass the security of any fortress by setting a simple teleportation beacon inside the fortress was understandably considered to dangerous and therefore it´s use inside the borders of the Empire was outlawed.
Meaning the only way Alcina could use teleportation magic was with enchanted Items and those tended to be on the weaker side.
For example the enchanted bracelet that Alcina had found in the family treasury, while it could teleport someone across half of the known world, could only teleport the wearer into a specific room in the basement of the family mansion. But if there was another person inside that room the wearer would switch places with them.To most that made it a good way of escaping from danger, but not that useful for anything else. But to Alcina it was just the thing she needed to get a monster that was capable of killing the bitch and her followers quite easily, within striking distance of them.
The monster had to be one of the Berserkir, mostly due to their ability to regenerate ,which allowed them to recover from wounds that would be deadly to any other race, and their near immunity to all spells that targeted them directly.Making them the ideal assassin for Alcinas purposes and it just so happens that her family had found a book that held a lot of information about the Berserkir as well as how to summon one.Information like that for about a week after being summoned the Berserkir will be in what they call their "human" form and after a week they will transform into a so called lycanthrope.After this transformation the Berserkr would be as powerful as higher demon, meaning that at least 10 of the Empire's finest knights equipped with weapons specifically made to kill the Berserkir would be required to kill it, and there was a potion that would cause the transformation to happen right after it had been summoned.
But that would cause the Berserkr to enter a blood frenzy and attack everything that moves on sight for a full day.Thankfully they had the ingredients for the potion in stock and now all she had to do was wait for the bracelet to recharge, because she had drained the magic from the teleportation rune as well as the tracking rune, on the second Bracelet, right before she entered the palace.
That way the bracelets became just that a bracelet, that only a artificer would recognise as an enchanted item, and now that her husband couldn´t track her anymore he would bring the Berserkr, that he had summoned while she was on her way to the royal palace, into position. Ready to force feed it the potion just before the teleportation enchantment was ready and after nearly half an hour of listening to the bitches pitiful mockery the enchantment was finally ready.Alcina pulled the last enchanted item on her person from its hiding spot and dropped it onto the floor.The motion caught the attention of the bitch and her eyes narrowed at Alcina. "What is that?" she asked while pointing at the stone in front of Alcinas feet. "Oh that is just a scrying stone dear nothing to worry about, not that you will have the time to do that though. Anyway, may your death be as painful and slow as possible." Alcina said with a smile just before she activated the enchantment and in the blink of an eye she was standing next to the beacon inside the cellar of her family's mansion.
Alcina quickly moved towards the only door and knocked three times. But whoever was on the other side of the door didn't open it, even after she knocked repeatedly. "Come now open the door or do you believe a Berserkir would knock?" she said somewhat angrily. That seemed to convince the guards to quickly open the door to let her out. But she couldn't really fault them, because when dealing with one of the Berserkir it was better to be safe than sorry. "Apologies Madam" said one of the Guards once she had exited the Room. "We were unsure..." she raised a hand to silence him and asked "Where is my husband?"
"This way Madam" said the other guard as he led her down the corridor towards another door. The sounds of battle growing ever louder as they did and it only grew louder once the guard had opened the door. The room had probably once been a storage room, but now it was empty except for a simple wooden table with her husband Oswell being its sole occupant at the moment.
Oswell beckoned her with one hand as she entered the room "Quickly you're going to miss the best part". "Did I miss the death of that insufferable whore." Alcina asked as she hurried towards the table.
"No, she is still alive but he already managed to kill seven people. It's honestly quite impressive. Oh better make that eight."Alcina lowered her gaze at the hologram that the scrying orb was creating, which showed her the carnage the Berserkr had unleashed upon her enemies.
The Berserkr was almost twice the size of even the largest elf in the room and looked like a black bipedal wolf. It was currently crushing the skull of one of the nobles in one of its hands, like Alcina would crush a grape, while its jaws found the throat of another.
Alcina then watched as it began to shake the noble, like she had seen hunting dogs shake their prey. She was fairly sure that the second or third shake had snapped the noble's neck. Finally the Berserkr threw the noble's corpse against a pillar, shattering his skull and a large part of his torso and then charged at his next target. The other noble`s had of course not been idle, well not all of them, some were just cowering behind whatever cover they could find, and sent a constant stream of spells at it. But most of them seemed to lose ever more of the mana that sustained them the closer they traveled towards the Berserkir and the few that hit it didn't do more than slightly singe it fur.Leading to some fools drawing whatever weapon they had at hand and then tried to fight it in melee. The first of these fools was run through by one of the Berserkr hands, while the claws of the other sliced through the second's throat with little resistance.
The Berserkr jaws then snapped shut around the skull of the third squashing it like a melone. This distracted it long enough for the sword of the fourth to find its mark, but the sword barely managed to pierce the hide of the Berserkr and the noble simply stared in disbelief at the small wound he had caused. "Huh so it can be hurt after all" Alcina muttered in surprise. Oswell nodded before replying "My thoughts exactly, but that wound will probably be gone in a second or two. But at the same time it was quite predictable that a sword like that couldn't do more than scratch this mountain of muscle. I mean even I can tell that it was made to look pretty not to be practical in a fight".
Alcina had to agree, as she watched the Berserkr grab the noble's head and then smash him face first into the floor crushing his skull, the sword's hilt was just too big and it had too many decorations to be really practical. She just shrugged "Maybe it was enchanted."
"That would make sense, but at the same time it would make him the biggest Idiot I have ever seen. Because everybody knows that the Berserkir drain the Mana from their immediate surroundings including both Spells and enchantments. Although you still have to admire the courage it takes to fight something like that in melee combat".
"It's cute that you still try to see the best in People, even Trash like them" Alcina said with a smile. "Well my dear" Oswell said as moved around the table to give her a one arm hug "one of us has to stay positive". Alcina just shook her head and returned her attention to the hologram. The Berserkr had killed almost every noble in the room, but the palace guards had arrived and were currently piling into the room. Gaining the attention of the Berserkr and making it turn its back to the bitch in the process. The only reason the bitch was still alive was the fact that she had been a good distance away from the Berserkr and there had been other targets. But since she was clearly chanting an incantation for a spell, while three nobles feed their mana into the spell, she would probably be dead in a few minutes.
Her plan seemed to boil down to pump as much mana as you can into a spell and hope it is enough to critically wound the Berserkr. It wasn´t the worst plan, but she had waited too long and now the spell would have to travel through the entire area of influence of the Berserkr`s draining aura. Pretty much guaranteeing that the spell would do little more than making the Berserkr even madder, if that was even possible, than it already was and of course ensuring that she would have its undivided attention for a while.
But the bitch didn't seem to realize that and after finishing the incantation, she threw a fireball more than twice her size at the Berserkr. Alcina couldn't hold her laughter when she saw the expression of sheer disbelief, jaw drop and everything, on the bitches face as the fireball started to get ever smaller the closer to the Berserkr it got and it didn't help that the Berserkr was currently running in the other direction. When it hit the Berserkr it was now one tenth of its original size, but it still managed to knock down the Berserkr and set a lot of it´s back fur on fire.
The Berserkr immediately rolled around on the floor in an attempt to put the flames out, while the guards used this chance to charge at the Berserkr and tried to surround it.
This almost worked, for about a minute, until the Berserkr stood back up before they could fully surround it and it simply started hewing. It cleaved through throats withs it claws, ripped off limbs, crushed skulls with its jaws and broke necks with back hand swings, while it dodged most of the guards attacks or simply killed them before they had a chance to attack. Completely unbothered by the giant lump of charred flesh and third degree burn wounds that once had been its back.
This unsurprisingly stopped the guards charge, because they had expected that the Berserkr was on its last leg and all they had to do now was simply finish it off. That theory was now thoroughly debunked and that left the guards with only one option. Half of the guards tried to surround the Berserkr again, while the other half ran toward the bitch.
Their plan was probably to get the bitch away from the Berserkr while the others distracted it. Some might have called them brave and honourable knights that would perform their duty even when death stared them in the face.
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To Alcina however they were a bunch of fools that would die for a worthless whore that didn't deserve their loyalty or to survive the day and it seemed that the Berserkr agreed with the last point. Because once it noticed what the guards were doing it lowered itself into a quadrupedal stance and headed straight for the bitch with incredible speed for such a large creature. Some of the guards tried to intercept it to buy some time, but every time the Berserkr either dodged their attempts completely or quickly slashed their throats with its claws. The rest of the guards ran as fast as they could to reach the bitch before the Berserkr could reach her. But once the Berserkr had made it past the other guards in its way it managed to catch up to them, right when the guards had almost reached the bitch.
The guards tried to form a spear wall in a last ditch effort to slow the Berserkr down until the rest of the guards would arrive. But only a few of them even managed to raise their spears before the Berserkr was upon them and once again started to tear into them. There was little the guards could do to stop the Berserkr from breaking through their ranks in mere minutes. While that was happening the bitch threw every spell she knew at the Berserkr, all of which either missed entirely or didn't even reach the Berserkr to begin with, as she tried to get away from the Berserkr. But she didn't get far before the Berserkr pounced on her and then sank its teeth into her stomach. Alcina, Oswell and all the remaining guards watched as the Berserkr began to devour the bitch alive. Most of the guards looked away and covered their ears a few moments after the bitch started to scream at the top of her lungs. While the rest simply stared in horror at the Berserkr as the wounds on its back started to heal and its fur began to regrow.
"Incredible" Oswell breathed and Alcina would have agreed that the healing powers of the Berserkir were truly impressive, but her entire attention was currently directed at the bitch. She watched as the woman punched the Berserkr skull repeatedly with all the might she could muster, but the Berserkr simply ignored her efforts and continued to devour her entrails bit by bit. It was a slow and painful process that reduced the woman to a weeping mess. That could do little else than beg and plead, between screams of agony, for someone to help her. Some of the guards tried to help but they were quickly dispatched by the Berserkr and thusly only extended her suffering.
It was exactly the kind of death Alcina had wished upon the bitch just minutes ago and when she had said that she had naturally believed that she would enjoy the sight of the bitches painful death quite a lot. But now that it was actually happening she felt nothing of the sort and the only reason why she was still watching, was because she believed that it was only right that she watch till the end. After all she was the one that had put all of this into motion, with help of course, and so she looked down directly at the tear stained Face of the bitch, named Lucrezia, until all life had left her eyes.
The Berserkr continued to devour the now motionless body of Lucrezia for a few more moments, before it turned around to face the remaining guards that had started to slowly move away from it. But this time less than half of the remaining guards even raised their weapons. The other half of them were either frozen in fear now that the attention of the Berserkr was on them or had turned tail the moment the Berserkr had started to devour Lucrezia. However Alcina deactivated the scrying orb before the next massacre could even begin. She had seen enough killing for one day and she had to prepare for the aftermath of her actions. Oswell grabbed her hand, as she turned around, and gave her a reassuring smile.She gave him a quick kiss in return before they headed towards the door.
A few weeks later everything had been taken care of, at least until the dwarves stopped their sabre rattling. Thanks to the Berserkr´s efforts every single one of the nobles that could testify against them, were dead. Meaning that the case against her family was dropped, for now, and Alicina had used the time they had bought to get rid of all the incriminating evidence she could.
But there was a problem: the Berserkr was somehow still alive and after it had butchered it´s way through the royal palace it had been spotted heading north. Oswell hadn't taken the news particularly well and Alcina couldn't blame him. Not only was the Berserkr the only real witness left, but ever since it had been seen traveling northward ever more pointed questions were asked and more then once spies were discovered in their territory. It didn't help that every search party of adventurers, mercenaries or soldiers that was sent out to find the Berserkr either found no trace of it or never returned. That however wasn't what caused Oswell to pace around like a caged animal in a menagerie. After all it was just a bit more pressure from the noble houses, nothing they couldn't handle and they could just say that the Berserkr was coming for the one person that got away, which wasn't too hard to believe seeing as how the Berserkir were viewed by many as brutal Barbarians that lived for the thrill of the hunt.
No it was because the Berserkr, a roughly 500 pound heavy monster of pure muscle, claws and hatred that they couldn't kill or even stop for that matter, was heading pretty much straight for their estate. How it had even found out the identity of the person that summoned it and the location of their estate were somewhat unimportant questions in comparison to the question of what they were gonna do about it. However there was only one thing they could really do in this situation and that was to personally intercept the Berserkr and send it back where it came from before it reached their estate. Neither of them really liked the idea of being anywhere near the Berserkr, because it was very likely that the Berserkr would kill them before either of them had the chance to send it back. But it was either that or wait until the Berserkr reached their estate, an idea neither of them really liked, because there were far too many eyes at their estate for someone not to see the portal without them noticing and so they had no real way to control who knew about it or not.
So they had to grit their teeth and prepared themselves as best as they could for their confrontation with the Berserkr. But it turned out that they didn't have a good excuse to travel southward, at least until an Invitation to one of their nephews coming of age ceremony arrived. This gave them not only a pretty good excuse to travel southward but also something to look forward to, if they survived the journey. And once they had set off they learned that their newfound luck had not run out just yet, because they encountered absolutely no complications during their Journey.
Thanks to that they would arrive at their destination earlier than expected and that was quite well received by Oswell. Because it turns out that waiting to be attacked by something like a Berserkr whilst not knowing when it's going to attack is quite stressful and that was why Oswell spent most of the Journey with giving Alcina magic lessons while clinging to her like a scared child. Naturally most of said lessons were far beyond her, but Oswells was just such an enthusiastic teacher that she couldn't help but enjoy them.
But all good things eventually come to an end and in their case it was when their coach came to a sudden stop in the middle of nowhere. Both of them of course knew that it was because the kirin that pulled their coach and carried their guards had caught the scent of the approaching Berserkr. After all it was what they had been waiting for and now they just had to hope that their guards could buy Oswell enough time. They however knew very well how low the chances of that happening were, because they had seen with their own Eyes how quickly and easily the Berserkr could kill stronger knights than their guards. Which was why Alcina had personally placed hidden berserk runes in the gauntlets of every single one of their guards, so that they would fight what they considered their enemy to the bitter end. She loathed that she had to do this but they had to stack the deck in their favour if they wanted to succeed. So she pushed these feelings aside for now and looked outside the coach window.
Their guards had formed up around the coach with the trained proficiency that she expected from her knights. But she just had to look at how they stared at the edge of the nearby forest to know that they were still very nervous. Probably because their normally stoic steeds were just as nervous as them and every last one of them knew that meant that their chances of survival were rather slim. Yet despite knowing that not a single one of them ran away and she had to admit that she was surprised that none did. However that might be more because she knew from experience that people tend to run away in a situation like this. But in the End it didn't matter if they stayed because of some sense of loyalty to their comrades, simple safety in numbers or whatever other reason they might have. All that mattered was that they stayed and bought them some time.
'At least until the Berserkr kills almost all of them with little to no effort, causing them to rout.' Alcina thought grimly 'But that is what the berserk runes are for after'
Crack
Alcina nearly jumped as the near silence that had fallen over them was broken and she wasn't the only one. Quite a few of their guards as well as some of their mounts had quite visibly flinched and some had even fired some spells or arrows into the rough direction the sound had come from.
"Showtime" Alcina muttered as she grabbed her sword and once she had strapped it to her belt she turned to check on Oswell. The Man was still in the exact same spot on the floor of the coach he had been after the coach had stopped and was currently creating the necessary spell scroll for their plan. This was the main reason why their guards needed to buy them time, because unlike runes spell scrolls leave a manatrail that could be traced by their enemies and that would lead to unnecessary questions being asked. So they had no other choice than to make them now.
Satisfied Alcina turned to look out the coach window towards their guards, which were still scanning the forest for any movement, but the Berserkr was nowhere to be seen. Alcina simply stared at the forest, unable to hide her surprise. It should have been upon them the moment they heard the sound and so she couldn't help but ask herself 'Where is it'.
"Incoming" the warning came from the other side of the coach soon followed by more screams of alarm and a very familiar roar. Alcina stepped over Oswell towards the window on the other side of the coach. But before she could take a look outside something crashed into the coach with a loud thump and almost threw Alcina off her feet. Swearing under her breath Alcina turned to check on Oswell once again, ignoring the sounds of Battle that could be heard outside. Unsurprisingly she found him in pretty the same spot he had been before and still working on the spell scrolls. However there were a few Ink stains on his hand and the floor around it that were definitely new, but thankfully there were none on any of the spell scrolls. Relieved that nothing had gone awry she turned to look out the window to check on how their guards were holding up. She had never been particularly optimistic about their chances of slowing down the Berserkr long enough for their plan to work, mostly because she was a pessimist, but it turned out that she had been more optimistic than she had thought. Because she and her husband had believed that the Berserkr would be just as strong as it had been in the royal palace. But it turned out that the Berserkr had over it´s long journey northward become quite a lot stronger and faster. Where before she could at least see the Berserkrs attacks now the creature was like a blur as it tore through the guards and their mounts.
As far as Alcina could tell it had already killed a fifth of their guards leaving her little choice but to activate the berserk runes. Thankfully most of the surviving guards were still far enough away from the Berserkr for the runes to not be drained by the Berserkrs aura and so still worked as intended. The rest of the survivors, who were currently not about to literally lose their heads, stared in wide eyed shock as their comrades charged the Berserkr while screaming like madmen.
The berserk runes did of course do more than just send the user into a blind rage, it also gave them a frankly incredible pain resistance as well as increased strength and speed. But even with that boost the guards still didn't stand much of a chance against the Berserkr, because it was still stronger, faster and could regenerate. Additionally it was only aiming for killing blows, meaning that the fights between the Berserkr and one of her guards lasted only a minute or two before the elf's head was separated from his body or turned into a fine red mist. The kirin weren't fairing any better than their riders and the Berserkr more than once threw their dead bodies at their comrades to keep them at bay or in one case used one as a club.
Still Alcina watched every last second of every fight to get a feeling for how the Berserkr fought. What she found out was that the Berserkr didn´t use any fighting style and as far as she could it was relying on its strength, speed or its regenerative ability to win fights. That of course didn't mean it had absolutely no fighting skills whatsoever, just that they were on the level of the average street thug, most likely because it never had to really fight before it was brought to this world. That meant that the Berserkr attacks were quite predictable, especially since it kept aiming for its opponents head, and that was something that Alcina could take advantage of.
But that was something her guards couldn't do because they were still under the influence of the berserk runes and so one by one the Berserkr butchered her guards until only five remained. The reason why these five had survived this long became quite quickly apparent to Alcina when she saw how one of them actually dodged one of the Berserkrs attacks, probably thanks to the speed boost of the runes but that didn't matter seeing as it gave one of the other survivors enough of an opening to bury his sword deep in the Berserkrs gut. Only for one of the Berserkrs paws to close around his head and crush it with little effort, but thanks to the berserk runes the rest of the survivors paid the death of their comrade no heed and simply rushed the Berserkr. Alcina had expected the Berserkr to meet the charge, but instead the Berserkr while clutching its wound quickly fell back to pull the sword out of it´s gut and when it did Alcina saw it´s face contorted into a grimace of pain. Once the Sword was out the wound began to heal rather quickly, but for some reason the Berserkr continued to back up.
It wasn't really hard to guess why though after all the Berserkr clearly hadn't been a warrior before they had summoned it so it, like every living thing, didn't want to feel pain and because of that it tried to avoid being surrounded. Which was probably why it had only aimed for the heads of its opponents, to end the fights quickly and give them no chance to swarm it. Though why it stuck to this strategy now that there were only four of her guards left she didn't know. But it also didn't really matter if it bought them some more time. Sadly it didn't buy them as much as she had hoped, because as soon as the Berserkr had some breathing room it grabbed the heads of the two closest guards and slammed them into the ground, crushing them. The next closest guard used this opening to lunge at the beast, but the Berserkr simply grabbed him by the throat and then broke his neck with a flick of it´s wrist. Only for the last guard to jump onto its back, grabbing ahold of it´s fur and began stabbing it repeatedly. The Berserkr roared in anger, while it tried to get the elf off its back. But no matter what it tried the elf dodged all of it, enraging the Berserkr even further. After a few minutes of this the Berserkr finally had enough of this and simply threw itself onto its back, leaving the elf pinned and unable to dodge. The Berserkr used this chance to get a good grip on the weapon arm of its prey before it stood up again holding the elf at arm's length, while he clawed and bit at the Berserkrs arm. At first the Berserkr seemed somewhat confused by the guards behavior, but when the elf showed no signs of stopping it grabbed his throat and broke his neck.
After it had dropped the now lifeless body, it seemed to take in the carnage that surrounded it until it´s gaze fell upon one of the kirin. The animal was somehow still alive, but judging by how badly it was bleeding from three of its clearly broken legs it would be dead in a matter of minutes. Because of that Alcina had expected that the Berserkr would simply ignore the kirin and head for their coach. But to Alcinas surprise the Berserkr instead walked towards the kirin as soon as it noticed that it was still alive, which didn't go unnoticed by the animal. Any other animal would have either frozen up or panicked in a situation like this, but kirin were not like other animals. Which is why the kirin did neither of these things and instead used it´s one uninjured leg to roll onto its stomach. Where it simply waited for the Berserkr to come to it and once it was less than an arm's length away the kirin used the last of its strength to lunge at the Berserkrs throat. But the Berserkr simply grabbed the kirin by the throat before it could get even close to hitting its target. It then grabbed the kirins snout with it´s other hand, before it broke the kirins neck and once the last bit of life had left the animal's eyes the Berserkr gently laid it onto the ground. Then it closed the kirins eyes, before it stood up and turned towards the coach.
Alcina had expected to face a glare that would have made lesser women shit themselves, once the Berserkr had turned around. But instead the Berserkr looked sad, like it regretted what it had done , before its eyes met hers and the sadness was replaced by a cold determination. Yet it didn't move, seemingly waiting for her to get out of the coach. "Well I better not keep our friend here waiting." Alcina said as she pulled her sword out of its scabbard and opened the coach door. She then stepped out of the coach with all the grace that she could muster in a situation like this and got into a fighting stance expecting the Berserkr to charge her at any moment. However that charge never came, instead as soon as she had taken a fighting stance the Berserkr pointed at her and shouted "YOU SEND ME HOME!" with such a thick accent that she barely understood what it had said at first. Alcina simply stood there open-mouthed for a few seconds before she managed to ask "What?". Which of course angered the Berserkr causing it to shout once more "YOU SEND ME HOME!!" a bit louder and a somehow a bit more clearly this time making it clear to Alcina that she hadn't misheard. Which was good for her, after all that had been her plan from the start so if the Berserkr wanted to go home well then she would be more than happy to oblige.
So she quickly dropped her sword, to show that she didn't want to fight, and then gestured for it to wait hoping that it would understand. Then she pointed behind her at her husband who was still making the spell scrolls, before she repeated the gesture and carefully said "Wait". The Berserkr narrowed its eyes and scowled at her, but did nothing besides that so Alcina took that to mean that it would wait, for now. Which was fine, because it shouldn't take that long for Oswell to finish the spell scroll and open the portal. Though that didn't make the wait any more pleasant for Alcina, because there were quite a few things that she would rather do than having to keep a clearly angry Berserkr company while they waited. Mostly because all she could do was gesture for it to wait while smiling apologetically since she didn't know how well the Berserkr could speak her language and even if they could communicate it had clearly no interest in doing so leaving her stuck in this awkward situation.
Thankfully it only took Oswell a little over five minutes to finish the spell scroll. Once it was finished he hurriedly exited the coach and then used the spell scroll to open a portal directly to the very spot were they had summoned the Berserkr from. They had chosen that specific location not only to show that they were not trying to trick it, but also in the hope that the Berserkr would recognise it and just jump straight through the portal as soon as it realised where it led without wasting a single thought on getting revenge on them.
Sadly that's not what happened instead the Berserkr simply remained where it was, even though it clearly realised where the portal lead, and simply stared at them obviously thinking about killing them before jumping through the portal and well it probably did have the time to do that. But all Alcina could do was hold her husband's hand and hope that it would decide against killing them. Time seemed to slow down as she waited for the Berserkr to decide their fate and after what felt like an eternity to Alcina it finally turned towards the Portal. At first it simply stared into the Darkness, that always seemed to wait on the other side of portals to the Berserkir homeworld, clearly able to see through it and for a moment Alcina could have sworn that the dark fog that poured out of the portal formed into hands that gestured at the Berserkr to come to them, the same way she had done with Oswell many times when she wanted to spent some private time together in their bedroom. But as soon as she blinked they were gone like they were never there to begin with. However that was to be expected, after all there were many reports of People seeing hands, eyes, mouths or even entire faces in the darkness and none really knew if they had actually been there or if they had simply been a hallucination.
Of course Alcina didn't really care if what she had seen was real or not, all that mattered to her was that it seemingly got the Berserkr to run towards the portal. At first it did so on all four, but the closer it got to the portal the more it began to change back into its true form forcing it to run on its hind legs and when it reached the portal, now completely naked, it jumped straight through without even a single look back. Oswell then closed the portal right behind it and then they kinda just stood there for a moment staring into nothingness, before Alcina whispered so quietly that only her husband could hear her "We're alive?" After letting that question hang in the air for a few seconds, as if she couldn't believe it to be true, before Oswell turned to her and said "Yes my dear we are alive." with a big smile on his face that quickly spread to Alcinas face as well as she pulled in her husband for a big hug and like that they remained surrounded by corpses just happy to know that it was all over.
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"Now I bet you all didn't see that ending coming now did you?" Pawnsworth said letting the question hang in the air for a bit as he took in the confused looks on his students faces before he continued "I bet you all thought I was gonna tell you a true horror story to scare you kids so that you never even think about summoning a Berserkir right? So why didn't I hm? Well you see there are two reasons firstly because if somebody has predicted your argument then they have probably already dismissed it and secondly because I have learned over the years that for fear to be effective as a deterrence requires real tangible consequences as well as a constant reminder of said consequences. For Example let's say you wanted to make people so afraid of the consequences so that they don't commit any crimes, even if that could mean that they would starve to death. Which would require you to torture every criminal to death for days if not weeks no matter what their crime was, while forcing your people to watch every single day of it and even if you did that there is no guarantee that it would work. After all, guards are just people as well, believe it or not, and there are not many that would reinforce a law like that to the letter, as well as no population that would just take this lying down. Add to that the fact that as soon as you stopped doing that people would just commit crimes again, because they just don't fear the consequences anymore for a good example of this just look at war. Now I don't think that I have to tell you what a horrible thing war is, but I also know for a fact that none of you fear it and why should you. After all you have never been to war now have you, so you only ever heard of it from stories and seeing as a lot of you are nobles they were probably tales of glorious battle even though the soldier from the frontlines of said battle, that probably had to cave another mans skull in with his helmet would tell you otherwise.
Anyways, to get back to the point war is a horrible Thing that just keeps getting worse to more magic advances. Yet people keep going to war. Why? Simply because it benefits the ones at the top and is just an easy way to get what they want. The last one is quite the bad reason I know but you all know at least somewhat how hard it is to get a merchant to give you an even slightly better price. Now imagine how hard it must be to convince another monarch, that in all likelihood rather despises you, to give you anything and let's be honest here every living being will far more likely take the easy way instead of the hard one to get what they want. So taking all of that into account I came up with an easier way to convince you to not summon a Berserkr which is simply to tell you to summon a devil instead."
For the third time this day Pawnsworth let his words hang in the air so that they could probably sink in while he glanced at the clock to make sure he still had enough time to explain himself. "Now to put it simply, devils are just easier to handle and get the job done just as well as one of the Berserkir, because you can make a deal with them that they have to abide by. Which you can't do with a Berserkr since soul contracts or slave contracts don't work on them and before anybody says anything there are enough people out there that can write up a good contract for you, so that all you have do is just summon devils until you get a powerful one that agrees to your terms. That's why certain countries use devils like Mercenaries instead of the Berserkir. But also because devils are just more predictable than the Berserkir, thanks to the fact that we know what they want, that being souls. Sure they are cunning bastards, but at least you can communicate with them. And that's why in short you should summon a devil instead of a Berserkr any questions?" Pawnworth finally asked, knowing full well that his Students were way too taken aback to come up with some Questions in time before the Bell rang.
Satisfied with his timing Pawnsworth smiled and said " Alright now remember there will be a little test about what I taught you today, to be clear not the Berserkr part, so make sure to study, because while it will only influence your grade by a little there will be enough of these test throughout the year that it would be wise of you to take them seriously and don't forget summon a devil not a Berserkr it'll make both of our lives easier. Alright with that class dismissed."