Chapter 5 The frightened Knight

- Hi Julia, whispered Alex, I’m done. Where should I meet you?

- Hi Alex! Funny name by the way. Shall I call you Colonel?

- Not if you want an answer…

- Fine. We are at the plaza and are getting ready for a dungeon. Can you come at the fountain?

- I know here it is. I’ll be here in a minute.

Alex closed the friend window and got ready to leave. He had already spent enough time for the previous quests, and decided to take some time to just enjoy adventure before diving in the trouble this S Quest would without a doubt give him. He had put the books in his inventory. And he went to the fountain. He soon saw Julia with a patchwork group: a bulky dwarf with a bow and long braided blue beard, a skinny elf with scarlet hair and eyes armed with an imposing two-handed and double-edged axe, a young girl holding a kitten and a shiny terrified knight.

Then Alex’s hand rose to salute them. Julia just jumped waving at him, the young girl kept petting her cat while smiling gleefully, the dwarf bowed politely, the elf just acknowledged him with a head movement and the knight… the knight fell in the fountain by trying to flee.

***

David Felks was what people would call a fortunate man. He was born in one the wealthiest family. He was gifted and was soon seen as the rightful inheritor of his father’s empire. He had two cute younger sisters and had nearly never faced a challenge he could not overcome. Or more precisely, he had never faced anything he could consider a challenge.

But if his kind heart made him loved by everyone, or nearly, his father saw that as an awful weakness his competition would take advantage of. He then decided to teach his son the rudeness of the world. He showed him the fate of homeless one, but David joined an association to help those, and his good senses allowed him to better organize this association, which grew to help even more people.

He then showed him a starving city which had been left to die by a warring country. But once more, he was no good. David soon managed to let this information filter to numerous organization, and international help rapidly came. And all his actions, to the great despair of his father, were comforting him in his choices.

However, things can’t always go in the same way, and took this time the form of his father’s friend to destroy his ideals. He was a business partner, but not an official one, and when David’s father, after a drinking bout, complained about his son’s good heart, he whispered a few evil word to his ear: words about hell upon earth, word of a world where only the finest can live and where the wealthiest can enjoy the show, words about the Hell Ring of the Underground Arena.

At first, David’s father just discarded the idea, but as his son grew older, he himself grew impatient. And when David hit the 16 years mark, his father made inquiries about the most gruesome fight he could see in the arena and bought two places.

Two months later, David and his father went to the meeting place. There two men invited them to enter a car with tinted windows. Half an hour later, they entered the arena. Even if he didn’t share those, David’s father knew and acknowledged the urges of his clients and business partners. And he knew quite a lot of them had such drives. And David was surprised by the number of people he knew to happily salute him. He did not know yet of the show he was going to see, and began to grow impatient seeing the eagerness surrounding him.

One bell rang, but it was a tolling bell. And an announcer appeared in the middle of a replica of the Coliseum.

- Welcome ladies and gentlemen! Welcome through time in the holy land of fighter. Today we will have grand battle. On the right side we have 50 heavy convicts: rapists, murderers, terrorists and others will fight for their life. No guns, but they have sword swords, wakizashis, knifes and baseball bats! And now on the right side, the greatest gladiator, the one we all love to see fighting, the true meaning of might, the four times champion of the Death Tournament, the one and only Dark Lord, Alexander The Conqueror!

At this time the grandstands went in frenzy. Cheers erupted from every side, showing an incredible pleasure at the simple mention of this name. David looked at the man and recognized he was impressive. He wasn’t the tallest in the ring, but with well-toned body and his cold gaze, he was exuding a threatening aura none other could match. But he had no weapon and only a Roman warrior’s skirt as clothes.

- Be ready, ladies and gentlemen! The bets are now closed. So what are the odds? I can see you believe in our champion as the odds are 1 against 8 in his favor. It sure seem profitable to bet against him, but that’s only if he were to lose. Do you really think the impossible will happen? No need for words here. Let the fists judge!

And the battle began. Without even an ounce of hesitation, half of the offender group jumped at the chance to quickly kill their enemy. Freedom was promised to them, should they manage to win the fight. And they only had one man to kill. But the warrior facing them quickly acted, and before 3 seconds had passed the group withdrew, missing three of them.

One was rolling on the ground, crying while holding his broken knee. Another was on all fours, scratching the floor while desperately trying to breathe through his crushed trachea. The last one was still standing, but did not move. Alex’s right palm was still on his forehead. When he retracted his hand, the audience managed to see the blood flowing through the man’s nose and ears. He then went limp and fell on the ground, dead.

If the spectators were more than delighted by those events, his adversaries weren’t so eager to attack him anymore. They began to shout at each other, blaming others for errors. But Alex did not just wait for them. He quickly twisted the neck of the one with the broken knee and took his knife. Then he approached the suffocating one and caught him by his hair. And showing him to the audience, he simply put the knife against his skin and cut his jugular. Blood flooded. Spectators went in frenzy.

David and the remaining convicts were on the other hand in a shocked state. The latter knew what urges and fire could make people do, but this man, if he was a man, obviously had no such feelings. He was simply here to kill them and was doing his job in a very efficient and cold-blooded way. The former was discovering a new face of humanity. His abilities had made him believe all wars or cataclysms were simply due to misunderstandings or inefficient reactions. But here, he could see people he knew whole-heartedly enjoying a one way slaughter. Because a slaughter was the only word able to describe what was happening.

Before they could recover, the knife flew and stabbed one of them in the chest. They turned a moment to look at the origin of the sudden scream, but when they looked back, He was already there. They attacked him from all sides, fuelled by despair, but he just danced between the assaults. Some of them managed to graze him, but he took no dangerous hit while each of his disable one of them.

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In one minute, three more were dead, seven others disabled, and he had retrieved two wakizashis (shorts katana). For around ten minutes, David could only witness a bloody dancer invoking scarlet rain. The, it suddenly finished. Just one was standing in the middle of the blood soaked arena, surrounded by fifty cut in pieces bodies. Then the demon, because he couldn’t be anything else, just bowed to his audience who applauded the display. He then left, letting behind him a mess of flesh and blood, an entertained crowd, and a mind-broken youth.

What no one could see at that time was the profound disgust of the main performer. He walked out with a grieving heart and let out a sigh when nobody could hear him anymore. But he could not afford to weaken, and he steeled his heart once more, vowing to be the Dark Lord for as long as needed.

On the other side, David had been completely terrified by the performance. His father succeeded in showing him this world’s harshness, but now, his only son and inheritor was refusing to leave his room. It took one year and countless psychiatric session for him to recover enough to claim back his own life. And nearly two other years later, he was still having terrible nightmares at night.

One particular psychiatrist had advised them to make him face his fear of fighting, but he never managed to overcome it, even while learning martial arts. He helped improve his condition, but no fight was realistic enough to really compare to “that one”.

But the idea finally came to send him inside of a new world, where true fights could happen, and no death or injuries were long lasting: Edge of Magic. He created his avatar and soon was send to the city of Lutetia. There he began his adventure, becoming rapidly an important figure in the city, and creating a guild with three of his friends. At first they just had fun together, but they finally decided to try to recruit some other players. But being a small guild, they could not attract much people, except for newbies.

They each went their way, looking for interesting players. He first stumbled on a young woman who tried to steal his purse, but when he tried to stop her, he was harshly sent to the ground. And before him was standing the one from his nightmares. Incoherent thoughts began to flow in his mind: images of blood and flesh, and of a demon standing alone, smiling joyfully at the extent of his work, in the middle of countless dead bodies.

He did not remember what happened, but he just knew he managed to flee with his life. He was even quite proud of himself to have been able to save the thieving girl from a horrible fate and just magnanimously let her go. But in the end, he logged out and did not come back before one day. He went to the meeting place and saw a new face, a young girl who seemed to be some kind of summoned, and Julia told him they were waiting for another, a truly incredible one. But when he saw him, he stumbled and fell in the fountain, trying to flee.

***

Alex was meeting with the “Triskell” Guild. Julia happily began the introductions.

- Everybody! Here is Alex Sanders! Truth to be told, I know nothing about his stats or Classes, but he managed to achieve a “Perfect Hitter” at the Novice Courage Test, so I thought it wasn’t important.

- How did you know about this achievement, asked Alex, surprised she was able to tell?

- I simply asked the instructor. So now Alex, tell us more about you!

- Fine! I’m a level 1 Nephilim, and I won’t be able to take any Class soon because of a particular quest. I finished the 3 Novices tests.

- A level one, complained the elf to Julia. Are you sure he is strong enough? We won’t have time to babysit.

- It’s fine, said the young girl, he is the one who gave me the book about my class!

- That doesn’t mean he is strong.

- Strong? What is the meaning of strength, raved the knight with a shivering voice? If one shall be called strong, then it is that one! No one can be called strong when facing him.

The elf, the dwarf and Julia exchanged a glance, worried by the state of their friend and guild master.

- Don’t bother about him, whispered Julia to Alex, I don’t know what happened, but he has been acting strange since yesterday!

Of course, Alex understood that it was since their last encounter, because of the time lag between this one and the real world. So he grew even more worried. But his attention was soon taken by Julia.

- The young lady here is a new member of our group. It would seem you have already met her. Her name is Anna and she has the Class “FengShui Summoner” and she’s level 21. This cat is one of her special invocation. His true name is Bai Hu, she calls him Tigrou, and we call him kitty.

- Hi Anna, glad to see you again.

- Hi Alex. Thank you once more for your help.

- You’re welcome.

- Next is the dwarf. His name is Kordur. His level is 64 and his classes are “Sniper” and “Tracker”. He does not talk much but he’s really polite. When he says something, you can be sure it’ll be important and clever.

- Hi!

The dwarf just bowed as response.

- This mean elf here is Bob. Level 67, “Barbarian” and “Fire Mage”…

- I’m a PyroBarbarian, explained the elf with a smile.

- You can simply ignore him, continued Julia, and your life will soon become easier!

- Nice to meet you Bob!

- Nice to meet you Alex! And don’t listen to everything this vicious girl will be telling you. She just can’t accept that I’m stronger than her.

- Then about me, you already know I’m Julia. I’m also level 67 and by the way, I’m stronger than this stupid bird-brain of an elf. My classes are “Water Mage” and “Sea bound Priest”.

- Glad to meet you once more Julia, said Alex with a smile.

- Same thing here. The last one is our guild master. Here he is called Percival and is level 69. His classes are “Silver Knight” and “Born Commander”. He is not like his usual self today, but he can be truly impressive. Even more than you! So now that the introductions are done, I just have to say that: Welcome to our guild. Welcome to Triskell!

You’ve been invited in the guild “Triskell”. Do you accept?

Yes/No

You’ve been invited in a party. Do you accept?

Yes/No

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I've found the time to write a little. Still don't know if it will be possible for tomorrow.

Hoping you'll enjoy your read!

Have a nice eve and a happy new Year!