Second Chapter of the day!
It will explain a few things concerning Chaotic players so I hope you enjoy it!
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Chapter 27: The Capital
After many hours of battle and travel, Makoto encountered his most dangerous situation yet.
It had turned night, more and more wolves started to come out and he had to fight for longer times, the only thing keeping him alive being his crazy regeneration.
It went well until he managed to get the attention of 3 packs at once.
All in all, more than 200 wolves looked at him from the darkness and immediately a cold shudder ran down his spine.
Seeing so many yellow eyes appear out of thin air spooked him more than a little.
Naturally he readied his sword but all around him In the grassy field he could see more yellow eyes appear.
Makoto quickly lost count so he started to focus on the ones next to him, on the ones ready to jump at him any second now.
They circled around him for a good while, testing the waters maybe but how should he really retaliate when he was only waiting for everything to go downhill at any moment.
He knew his regeneration was good but as always, he was in no way invincible.
Changing the sword in his hand to wipe his sweaty palm dry, Makoto's eyes shot from right to left nonstop.
He wanted to see the first move coming if possible, which is why he was so incredibly alert right now.
Thankfully he did not have to wait long.
A growl behind him was all the warning he got before his feet automatically moved to the side and a giant black streak shot passed him.
Breathing slowly he examined his surroundings again and immediately the change around him was noticeable, the air was full of static electricity and tension.
This time Makoto decided to land the first blow and lashed out against one of the bigger wolfves, taking out one of its eyes.
378 Damage dealt!
You have put a status effect on your opponent!
Blind: -20% accuracy until the battle is finished.
Right away, 4 wolves jumped into the circle, each one trying to bite a different part of his body.
Twisting his back and wielding his blade like a windmill, a few paws and ears flew through the air, cut loose from their hosts.
Growls all around him told him the displeasure of the other wolves and soon enough more and more attacked him in the circle until there was no circle anymore.
The only thing left on those grassy plains was bloody madness.
He had no idea how long he fought for.
Could have been hours, could have been minutes.
But at the end of it all the grass was dyed red, intestines of all kinds littered the earth and the only one standing was Makoto.
His health was nearly depleted, every part of his skin had deep gashes and bite marks.
This fight allowed him to finally reach level 20, in a somewhat trance he equipped his new gauntlets and distributed his stat.
Nearly all his armor was in tatters, breathless and hurting all over, Makoto walked past all of those corpses.
With a mad grin on his face he poked out every single on of their eyes, opened their bellies and fed each corpse its own innards.
His actions could be called completely mad and foul but he didn't care.
A deep and dark voice inside of him was telling him that these mutts should suffocate on their own flesh, even in death.
They had dared to go against him.
Dared to attack him.
Giggling like a madman, Makoto wanted to wipe the blood from his hands but there was not one cloth on him that was clean.
He was drenched in Wolf blood from head to toe.
Shrugging his shoulders, Makoto put his hand in front of his mouth and started to lick the grimy blood away.
Only after both of his hands were clean did he stop and realized just how messed up it was what he just did.
Before he could try to piece together the fragile thing that was his mind, after fighting in a life and death battle for way too long, a system message interrupted him.
Your cruel and inhuman actions have pleased the Blood god Ezavaris and he has rewarded you with a title!
Champion of Blood:Even after destroying his church and angering the Divine Blood God your actions speak for themselves.
You have been more ruthless and cruel than all of his followers before.
Your distinct instability and madness fascinate the Blood God and he has crowned you his champion on this plane.
Your very presence can make grown man piss their pants when they feel your anger.
All churches have branded you as a traitor to live itself and deny you any hospitality.Effect:+10% chance to inflict 'fear' status effect on your opponents when entering combat.Additional Effect:+10% Chance to inflict the 'fear' status effect on your first attack in battle.
Completely baffled at what he was reading, Makoto stared at the system window for a long time.
He hated the Blood Moon Church and its God, he hated everything they stood for an now he was crowned the champion of this mad Divine Being?
"Delete title 'Champion of Blood'"
Unable to delete titles!
"Fuck!"
Enraged he stabbed his sword in the blood soaked ground.
"Don't fuck with me, I don't care if you are a God or not I don't want your title!
Take it back!"
He howled towards the sky.
The benefits did not matter to Makoto, but knowing that he would be akin to the people that slaughtered nearly half of Shivercliff with this title... it was just too cruel of a joke...
"Take it back you scum of a God!"
Makoto screamed, his lungs already exhausted while the taste of blood entered his mouth.
It might have been an overreaction, but every time he saw this title, he was yet again reminded of Boran and the look in the man's eyes.
The eyes of a broken man still haunted him to this day.
Not being able to save those villagers from Shivercliff had been an emotional trauma he had laid to rest after destroying the Blood Moon Church, or so he thought.
But alas, he was now cursed with a Title he did not want.
Had he really been as cruel as the system window said?
Was he lost in a mindless madness?
In a way it frightened him that until now he had not noticed how his actions had been so extreme.
Was this really who he was...
After about half an hour, Makoto slowly stood and picked up the surrounding loot.
There was no other choice but to live with what he got and what he was.
In the end he decided to see it as some kind of fucked up blessing and be wary of his own actions, his self control had been rather lax the past few days...
Other than that he pretended like he never received the title to begin with.
.....
The Labyrinth City of Elisante.
A place that had many rumors and even more tales to tell.
Makoto stood on a hill and looked at the outside of this thriving metropolis.
The walls surrounding the city were simply gigantic, a stone wall of a size he had never seen nor could have ever imagined, the gate alone was 150 feet tall and the walls next to it nearly doubled that size.
It was deep in the hours of the night but still he could see the entire city light up the sky like a neon sign.
The walls seemed to stretch endlessly to the right and left, only a slight bend was visible from his standpoint.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
It took him nearly another hour to finally reach the gate.
Immediately he noticed a whole group of guards and they noticed him at the same time too.
"Halt stranger!
We will only allow you passage after taking a closer look at you, if you do not comply, leave immediately or we will put you behind bars!"
A bit confused about the harsh treatment, Makoto stepped forward and one of the guard pointed at his new gauntlets.
"Take them off."
Now with a big question mark on his face, Makoto complied and put them in his Inventory for now.
Two men of the guard stepped up and turned his hands around, examined them and even rubbed over his skin a couple of times.
"He is clean sir."
One of the men next to Makoto said and the Captain of the guard nodded, now with a smile on his face.
Still confused like before, Makoto asked what that had all been about.
"I see you must be new to the Capital stranger, you a foreigner?
Well it doesn't really matter, to cut things short, we checked if you were branded by the Gods of Good.
I think you foreigners call it being 'Chaotic'.
Whenever a man raises his hand against his neighbor, harms or hurts anyone else except himself, he will be branded by the Divine Beings we call Gods of Good.
That person will receive a red mark on the back of his hand, it is impossible to remove it if you do not redeem yourself with good deeds by helping out smaller Villages or Cities for example.
You can do that by helping its citizens or by accepting different hunting missions to make the lands safer, the choice is yours in that matter.
People who have been branded are not allowed to enter the Capital of Asuria, rules are different everywhere but here it is an iron clad law.
So if you ever get branded, know that you can piss right off if you turn up here, even if you are a Bounty Hunter, Chaotics are not welcome!"
Thankful for the thorough and good explanation, Makoto put his gauntlets back on and walked through the gigantic gate of Elisante.
Immediatly after going through, a crowd of people surrounded him.
Even during this late hour the streets were packed with people, Players and NPCs alike.
The sheer number of people around him was mind boggling, everywhere you looked there was different attractions, bars, establishments and things to see.
Behind the walls there was a whole other world.
The Labyrinth city of Elisante got its name because of two fundamental reasons.
First of all, close to the center of the city there was an actual Labyrinth, a dungeon players and NPCs alike could travel down to and train to their hearts content without ever leaving the city walls.
The other reason for its name was that inside those gigantic walls there was one layer stacked upon the other.
There was the normal street, the house that stood above it, the street that ran above the house, the park that was built over the street and so on and so forth.
Layer upon layer had been built, different platforms formed with a few holes letting the occasional sky in.
Stairs lead up and down each layer at different vantage points and you could step off to another layer at any given time.
A maze in the construction itself, that was Elisante.
The reason behind it was quite simple, should the walls ever fall, this complex structure would be both a good way to defend against attackers and the perfect stronghold as only residents knew their way around without getting lost.
It was a sight in itself seeing a fountain beneath a stadium with a street going over it and another house built above said street.
There was shops everywhere, people everywhere, shoving and pushing in every possible direction.
Makoto felt a bit unwell, the whole experience was just too much at once so he ascended the stairs, one layer at a time until the masses thinned out, until there was no one left except him.
After about 20 minutes of walking he reached the final upper layer and looked at the biggest city he had ever seen.
A metropolis and a Labyrinth all at once, both beautiful and beyond understanding.
Makoto stood there at the upper most layer, all around him he could see those holes in the structure like the holes of a Swiss cheese, he could see people flocking in one or the other direction in those gaps, more than 50 layers were between him and the ground right now.
He also noticed that the number of layers increased the further you got into the actual center of the city, like a very flat pyramid.
Funny enough he was able to glimpse the center of the City at the horizon, oh so far away.
From his viewpoint he could clearly see how all the layers quickly shrunk until only one thing remained, the Royal Palace of Asuria.
There was an incredibly big space reserved just for this one building, no other layers seemed to be allowed to be built near it, understandably.
Even from this distance he was able to admire the incredible height and width of the structure, like with everything in Elisante, size seemed to matter most here.
Makoto could strain his eyes as much as he wanted, he was still not able to see the other side of the wall even while being as high up as he was right now.
One other area that was free of any layers was the Colosseum to the west, he had entered the city from the south gate so he was able to see the gigantic bulding in all its glory.
That was where the monthly Tournament would be held, as far as he remembered it would be tomorrow at 8pm Real Life Time.
Until then he still would have to attend College as tomorrow was Monday.
Something else he would do before entering the Tournament was to take a look at the Labyrinth, it was his fastest way to reach level 25 after all.
Makoto stood there for a good while at the top layer, leaning against the railing while he watched the entire city live and breath.
Together with this incredible view he was even able to enjoy the dawn of a new day in all its blinding glory.
Unable to hide his excitement, an impish smile appeared on his face as he looked at Elisante, exploring all of the city alone would probably take a few months at least.
This gigantic City would be his new playground for the time being and he loved it.
Deciding that it was time to log out and get some shut eye before College, Makoto went down a few layers until he found an Inn that was squeezed beside a Spa and next to one of the gigantic holes, allowing complete view of all the layers above and below.
Inside the establisment only a few players could be seen loitering around.
He rented a room at the Innkeeper as that would reward him with a buff if he logged out for more than 8 hours.
Giving a quick look to the Task-Board that seemed to take up half of the wall, Makoto was not too surprised.
There was nearly a hundred flyers hung up and most of them had something to do with the Labyrinth.
He decided to accept all the ones that he could for now and then finally logged out after a good days work.
Excitement rushed through him whenever he thought about what the next day would bring him.
The Labyrinth and Tournament both in one day, grinning even in his sleep, Makoto could not wait to wake up again.
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Aaaaaaand here is Chapter 27!
Hope you all enjoyed and i tried to answer some of the many questions people had about Chaotic players, it will be explained even more at a later date but this should give you somewhat of a picture what you need to do to get rid of the Chaotic status.
Bounty Requests shall be explained in Volume 3 as our MC has a tight schedule with the Tournament and all!
Kind of surprsied that there is so many people who nitpick against Bounty reuqest and what Makoto should and should not do.
Oh well, everything will be answered in time :).
Hope you all enjoyed and see you tomorrow!
PS: SOOOOO TIREDDDDD!!! D;