Day 19
Matthew bent his torso back with supernatural speed. Mummer's blow passed a few inches from his face, but this no longer left him as terrified as the first days of training.
He put all his weight on his left foot after the opponent's move and activated two abilities.
[Shield Smash]
[Charge]
With the same propulsion as a rocket, he planted the shield on Mummer’s joint, between shoulder and arm. [Charge] gave him a moment that escaped the rules of physics. It was a low-level skill, but Maximilian advised him to use it as much as possible.
Cunt, in a duel it's different. But if you are fighting against dozens of enemies, it is better to use the great skills only to save your life, while with the low-level ones you can navigate all situations. The better you know how to use them, the higher the chances you survive.
The bad news? Matthew noticed Mummer shake off the blow as if he hadn't hit him with all his strength. He thought for a moment about his class.
[Paladin - Level 25]
He had climbed the levels with frightening speed, but it still wasn't enough.
Ankon was filling up with very high level monsters ...
But Mummer had become a sort of tank. Matthew had no idea what Maximilian had done to him, no one did.
In a flash, the pommel of his enemy's hilt hit him on the forehead.
Then he saw only stars for about ten seconds, and then he felt a well-aimed kick in his ribs.
"You can't faint in a battle, they'll kill you immediately."
Matthew turned on his side, before getting on all fours and slowly trying to get up.
Nobody knew exactly what happened to the big man who could now compete with Dwayne Johnson, the Rock. Matthew, however, sensed it had something to do with his bones.
Mummer wasn't a talker, but Matthew was smart enough.
It was enough to look at the [Weapons Master] for half a second to realize that Maximilian had forced him to undergo a complete restyling: the Londoner had found the right formula to make hair gel and the first test he had done was on Mummer's hair, who had since been forced to carry them up on the sides. And to grow sideburns that covered most of his jaw.
“Wolverine, guys, he is literally Wolverine. How can you not see it?! Come on, it's the same! Maximilian has changed something to his bones! He might have found adamantium!"
Matthew had freaked out when none of the other Earthlings had listened to him, not even Neri. How they could be so blind and stupid was truly incomprehensible.
"Not paying attention?" Mummer sank the blunt sword into the centre of the Californian's chain mail. Neri had created it especially for him.
Matthew was one of the few people who wore full armour - it was one of the requirements of his class. If he didn’t, his abilities wouldn't work.
The weirdest thing?
It didn't matter that Matthew wore the armour, only that there was one forged especially for him. The concept of armour was more important than its physical presence on him.
Matthew had inquired a little and had heard that some Vanedeni warriors, at very high levels, could wear their armour without even getting up. It teleported directly to the bodies of its owner.
The only downside was that inserting each element of the armour correctly took time. A lot of time. Now he understood the need for squires, or what the hell was the name for those who followed knights into battle.
Mummer's blow hadn't been particularly strong, given his new fighting standards, yet Matthew almost threw up. The young man had just received the equivalent of a Mike Tyson's punch just below the breastbone.
And while he struggled to keep his breakfast in his stomach, Mummer began to do some exercises for the flexibility of his muscles.
Matthew felt the armour begin to weigh on him, and he realized that several hours had passed since he had started training. It was an alien concept for him, who hadn't even seen a gym on a flyer before arriving on Kome.
"You've put on some muscle, finally," Mummer commented.
“Bro, you have no idea. Soon I will become the Hulk."
Matthew struck a body-builder pose, which had no effect whatsoever, since Mummer had no idea what those strange movements were.
“Without a class it would be impossible to advance that far. You have chosen well, Matthew. The [Paladin] class is able to take a lot of blows without falling. But you still have to train. Even though I am of a higher level, some Ahalis hit harder than me."
"The rabbitmonkeys?"
Matthew too had seen the illustrations of their enemies and could not help calling them with that surreal term that Maximilian had coined. Mummer nodded and sat down.
“We don't have many people capable of holding a position against their charge. With you, there are only about ten men who can stop an Ahali who had time to gain speed."
They were inside a courtyard that Maximilian had cleared for training. When he wasn't acting like a madman, the Londoner was extraordinarily efficient; he was almost a perfectionist maniac.
"Then? Do we already know what the strategy will be?"
Mummer pointed his sword in front of him to make sure its structure was still intact.
"Guerrilla. If we go against them in any other way, we all risk dying without even trying. The problem are the Ahali women. Did they explain to you how they fight? "
"Men are beasts nearly two meter tall, with gorilla arms and more muscles than you." Matthew saw the [Weapon Master] smile.
“Bigger, but not stronger. We might really have a chance of winning now. It seems impossible to me to think about how Maximilian changed everything,” Mummer said.
“There is also Eudokia. And Themistocles is doing a great deal of tactical work in preparing for battle. The daily exercises with him are brutal."
The big man shook his head. Matthew, however, did not understand what he had said wrong.
“If Themistocles did not die on the first day, it is only because he was helped by Maximilian. If Eudokia is here, it is because Maximilian somehow managed to penetrate the Curtain and bring here a being that seems older than this continent itself."
There was a torn expression on Mummer's face, as if he was struggling inside himself with something, or about something.
"Do you know why my people hate [Necromancers] so much?"
Matthew had neither studied the history of the Vanedenis nor had he bothered too much to retrieve this information. He did not like too much to follow the lore of the video games he played, nor of the animes. He loved the adrenaline he felt while holding the joystick in his hand or watching epic battles, that was what he liked about those worlds.
“No, zero. Spill the beans."
Mummer only understood no, and decided not to even try to understand the rest.
He began to explain.
“It's very simple, actually. When a new Hero emerges among us, it is often difficult to notice. At first everybody thinks that he is another senseless individual who must be executed or exiled for the good of all our people.”
“Pay attention, Matthew, because I will teach you something important for us. Being a Hero and the [Hero] class are not the same. The class is the pinnacle of the journey, but not all Heroes have received the class distinction, and not all who have received the [Hero] class have actually become Heroes.”
Matthew knew nothing of what Mummer was talking about - little by little he began to understand.
"Our greatest Hero, the first, Idner, the one who sacrificed himself to get us here, and the second, the one who provided us with the means to travel outside the continent... it is said that neither of them had obtained the [Hero] class."
Mummer remembered when he was still in the service of the Rodinia family in Vissart and all the stories he had heard from the people around him, and how some tales clashed with others. He had had to ask scholars, wise men and historians among the Vanedenis to have a semblance of truthfulness of what had happened in the history of their people. When it had been impossible for him to fight because of his many wounds, seeking answers in the past was all he had left to do.
And he had found many. Some less nice than he would have liked.
“The status of Hero is not something that is officially awarded, although some may disagree. Among us there were people who did not prove to be up to their class. And we have forgotten almost all of them, because they weren't able to leave a mark on history."
Mummer paused. There were things in his people's history that weren't so easy to tell. On his face, pride clashed with shame.
“Mauser, King of Necromancers. This was the title he had given himself. He had obtained [Hero] class and was capable of repelling entire enemy armies on his own. He did not need support, he had an incredible magical talent, like the legends of the greatest Heroes. He recaptured an entire province to the north in a week, without shedding the blood of even one of our warriors."
Mummer seemed to be aging visibly, saddened by the story. Not even Maximilian's special treatment could do much in the face of the wounded pride of a Vanedeni.
“Mauser was so strong and benevolent that he prevented our men from perishing, reassured them, telling them to regain their strength for the bigger battles, and that he would put the counter-offensive back on its feet. Everyone, Matthew, everyone, believed that he would be the next Hero, that we finally had someone to follow again, that Mauser could defeat the Ahalis without any problems.”
“They had granted him the title he had given himself. They hadn't seen a Hero for hundreds of years, and were so desperate that they were ready to follow him en masse, to create an avalanche that would take those damned monsters out of our continent. They had forgotten that our ancestors had not been arrogant like us, but only full of the pride of belonging to such a valiant people."
“At that time, the Vanedenis had made a big mistake: they had not seen the monster grow among their ranks. They had not seen ambition distort the heart of the man who should have guided them.”
“Nobody wondered if they were ready to follow Mauser, if that was the right thing. His class was all Mauser needed to rally our people under him. The few who had dared to oppose the power that the King of Necromancers was amassing were killed by their own friends, spouses, children. They were so desperate, so eager to regain their status, the greatness that had distinguished us for centuries ... After exterminating an army of dragons, we acquired their same arrogance.”
"It was then that things began to create terror even among their ranks."
Mummer paused again, looking at his own body as if it were a foreign object.
“Mauser discovered that centuries and centuries of conquests and Heroes had changed the bodies of the Vanedenis, making them stronger, more talented than ordinary people. The very belief that they were the best had somehow turned into reality. We were a new race, incredible and full of potential to express.”
“We believed that Mauser wanted to use his knowledge to get all the talent the warriors' bodies could muster and my ancestors underwent terrible experiments, unimaginable torture, which ended up killing thousands and thousands of them. Yet, they could have avoided the terrible end they have reached."
"How?" Matthew was now curious.
“There had been bad omens, Matthew, omens that had enveloped the whole continent. But they wanted to ignore them. Remember: a bad omen should never be ignored, not when magic is a part of your life.”
“Mauser took advantage of their folly. He understood the valour that the bodies of the Vanedenis contained, but extracting the talent from them while they were alive was extremely difficult - not even he would be up to this feat, not in the short time he had available.”
“He found a way to put all the bodies of the Vanedenis to good use in the best possible way. He began to create awfully strong undead corpses, some with a new consciousness and soul, unstoppable, without the limitations of a human mind and a beating heart.”
“The hordes of undead, born from his early experiments, weren't enough, and that's when Mauser decided to use his comrades… but they didn't die fast enough. He killed thousands of his own warriors, an extermination so great that many remember it as the second largest massacre of our people after the fateful night in which the Ahalis attacked our capital.”
“The few noble houses that had not fled into the Border, the crevasse that divides the continent in two, united, forming a coalition that declared war on Mauser. Meanwhile, the Ahalis also fought against him. The Vanedeni front had now fragmented into several parts, with families beginning to fight their kin, nobles who found themselves having to execute their own children and wives who were on Mauser's side.”
“The scariest thing, Matthew, was that everyone believed him with disarming ease. Mauser was a fascinating person. He was rumoured to be able to convince you to cut off your arm for the common cause in mere minutes. He was a monster, one of the worst monsters in existence, one that hides a nightmare in the most desperate hopes of the people."
Matthew was genuinely speechless. It was the first time he'd heard Mummer utter more than ten words, but the story was so captivating that he didn't even dare to breathe for fear of interrupting him.
“It was then that came to power one of the greatest wizards our people could have hoped for. Personally, I believe she should have been considered one of our Heroes, but it was too dark a time for titles and roles to be given much importance.”
“Princess Valarith was a young woman whose magical powers were on the verge of the impossible. Even Mauser had never possessed such a talent, but it was now twenty years since the King of Necromancers had begun to wreak havoc on both sides. Our people had never been more divided…”
“You have to understand the historical importance of an event like this. There are no wars between us, no infighting. Killing another Vanedeni is such a big crime that there is no law to cover it, because it ends up in a huge bloodbath. Our customs have faded, but everyone knows of the gravity of such a crime.”
“Yet, in that historical moment, bloodshed was normal. No one trusted anyone."
"Why did they keep following Mauser, if he then killed them and turned them into undead?"
“Because Mauser was winning the war. And there was nothing more important to some of us. In that period we lost everything, everything that made us proud of ourselves. "
Matthew nodded slowly. At times he seemed to underestimate the attachment that they had for their culture. He would never have declared himself proud of being Californian because it just sounded too… awkward. But this was not true for the Vanedenis. They had such a love for what they had been and wanted to continue being that Matthew didn't know what to say, and it didn't even occur to him that this could be a fascist attitude - indeed, for a moment he was even ashamed not to have the same feelings.
“Valarith grew stronger and stronger and began to lead her army in the most terrible civil war you could imagine. The Ahalis were being slaughtered day after day, Mauser was killing them one by one. Their dismembered bodies, at times, were not even reanimated, but were used to ridicule our enemies. We are a bloodthirsty people, Matthew, accustomed to war, but Mauser committed crimes that were too bloody even for us. The torture of children was one of the lesser atrocities that our Hero was guilty of. He created aberrant monsters in his crypt, abominations only half alive, bending and tearing the souls of his enemies and stitching them together.”
“Therefore, even though we were about to win, our people had been reduced in numbers like no war could before. There has never been anyone who has managed to hurt the Vanedenis as much as ourselves.
“The last thing left to do to stop Mauser's folly was a sacrifice: Valarith sacrificed herself to finally kill the King of Necromancers, leaving us without a guide and with two armies that hated each other in disarray…”
“At the time, the Rodinia family took matters into their own hands and killed all those who still supported Mauser. No one was spared, but this only weakened us further. We had thrown away our chance to win so as not to turn into monsters. "
Matthew waited for Mummer to continue, but the gruff big man had fallen back into his usual silence. right at the most interesting part...
But Mummer didn't need to say and that's why we hate [Necromancers]. It was very clear to Matthew that the relationship that the Vanedeni had had with Necromancy had been deeply wrong. Someone had defiled the name of the great Heroes and their memory. Nobody talked about it, but everyone knew the story. It was taught by mothers to all children, beaten out of the bones of young warriors through bloody training. Never again would it be said that the Vanedenis had chosen a shortcut, no one would ever again dare to question their honour. They had overturned their victory, they had put themselves at risk of losing everything. And now, after three centuries of suffering, a divinity had also intervened for them, but never again, never again would such monsters be worshipped.
“Our village, Matthew, is made up of people who have been defeated in all possible ways. Most of us are outcasts from our society. The myth of our people was no longer part of us before you arrived here, before Maximilian showed a crystalline madness, a personality completely different from Mauser's."
The big man seemed to be enjoying himself and started laughing.
“I've spent a lot more time on books than this body may suggest. I may not have seen the battle first-hand, but I had access to the Rodinia library, open to anyone who wanted to know about our past. Our people don't want to forget skills, classes… and it was all written - about their progression or how strong they were at their peak, and the best guesses and speculation about the secrets they took to their grave.”
Matthew was truly baffled.
What did all the knowledge in that muscular brain have to do with him now?
Why did he talk about it like it was so important?
They hated [Necromancers], and so far he had understood why. But Mauser and Princess Valarith? If Mummer knew their skills and classes, what use would this information be?
"I see you don't understand, boy, then I'll explain it to you: in those manuscripts all the skills and classes of our Heroes are documented, all of them, in every moment of their development.” Matthew still could not understand. Could Mummer be trying to teach him something special? Could he finally find his old man ready to teach him some super-secret technique? Was he about to learn the Kamehameha?! The [Weapon Master] shook his head, dejected.
“These things are not for you. Get up, let's go. Soon it'll be time to eat and you need food."
…
Mummer was walking towards his house with Matthew, when he found himself witnessing a very singular spectacle. Several soldiers and civilians were watching a man, one of the [Stormbreaker Warrior], trying to ...
“AHHHHH!”
The man screamed with all his heart as the veins on his arms swelled with blood, to no avail. With his hands he gripped the hilt of a huge axe driven into the ground, an axe that had never been there before. The huge axe remained impossible to move, as motionless as a titan in the midst of a storm of screams and yelps.
Mummer began to ask what they were doing gathered around there, as none of them could move the weapon and, above all, how it was possible that no one would recognize it as his own. Matthew, however, did not have to ask. It was evident. Excalibur. Well, Excalibur wasn't exactly a huge axe, but the story was exactly the same.
"Maximilian said that it appeared out of nowhere and that it is ..." Mummer did not let his companion finish.
He just looked at the inscriptions on the handle, the pommel in the shape of a hydra head, part of the blade that seemed to have a bright green edge and didn't need to think further.
“This is the Warbreaker,” the big man whispered with a note of awe in his voice.
Nobody seemed to be aware of what was in front of them. Some weapons, such as the sword Strith had received from Eudokia, were so famous that it was impossible not to recognize them at first glance; others, on the other hand, had remained only in the books that recounted the deeds of the great Heroes of the past. Only Mummer, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of Vanedeni culture, could really understand its importance.
Mauser's terrible tale reminded all of them that they too could err, that they too had been traitors to their own people, and that the same legendary ranks that had conquered the world had been decimated over and over again.
But they did not fear the huge, fast and muscular Ahalis, because in their blood ran the blood of legendary Heroes.
The most glorious period of their people had seen the action of two heroes who had led them to conquer the world. They had fought against the horrible hydras and the fearsome dragons, they had gone to war with almost all the races of their world. They had been able to fight on two fronts at the same time when their name still did not strike pure terror in their enemies.
Two heroes had decided the fate of that war, a strategist and a warrior. And the latter had fought with the very axe that now stood before Mummer's incredulous eyes.
Another very powerful weapon that had been lost and that, finally, had returned to the hands of the valiant Vanedenis.
When he had seen the sword in Strith's hands, he had almost lost his mind. No one else had understood how important that artifact was, what it meant to wield one of those legendary weapons ...
And now...
And now...
"Did Maximilian have it?"
Mummer touched his arm in an unusually intimate, defensive gesture for him. He remembered the pain and his bones pierced by new material, which had replaced them and made him extremely powerful, which had changed his class and raised his level.
He hadn't quite gotten used to the change yet, and he hadn't fully accepted that it had been a [Necromancer] who had made that change.
Once again, Maximilian was allowing something potentially dangerous - but also potentially saving - to happen. As always. Until a few days before, Mummer had believed he was doomed. He was sure that the first charge of the Ahalis would knock him out, trampling his frail and useless bones. That he would not help his people win, that he would only delay a definitive defeat thanks to his sacrifice. How many times had he dreamed of revenge, how many? During the sleepless nights, he had believed that his people were defeated, that there was nothing left for them to do, but now there was a man among them, a man who would change their fortunes. No, not a man. A Hero.
A Hero able to turn the tables, laugh while playing with the world in his hand.
There was something sinister about Maximilian, something that Mummer couldn't quite explain, but which he feared would one day put them all in danger. Still, what else was left to do but follow him? Mummer kicked the soldier who was standing in front of the axe, shouting. He stepped forward and stroked the axe handle. His steel grip lowered on the handle.
“Soldiers! Silence!" he thundered.
He watched the men fall silent, shaken to the core by his cry.
“This is the Warbreaker. Skialaer wielded it against the arrogance of the hydras, then against the ambitions of the dragons. It made the whole world look down! And he did it because our people went to war, following him!"
Mummer took a deep breath and mentally moved all the energy of his body into the right muscles.
"Now, the time has come to teach those beasts who we are, who our ancestors were and what pathetic adversaries our enemies are compared to the ancient ones!"
The men's eyes sparkled, galvanized by the hope of dormant glory.
"Who are we?!" bellowed Mummer, pulling the axe towards him for the first time.
"Vanedenis!"
The axe did not move.
"WHO ARE WE?!"
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
This time, Mummer felt his bones release a new energy that had never been used in previous training sessions.
[Draconic Constitution]
"VANEDENIS!"
It was then that Mummer began to feel the weapon's first slight movement. Despite this, it was still not enough.
And in that moment, the air filled with something magical, something ancient. Just as the soil is never just a handful of dirt, every people is never just a mass of flesh and blood.
A magic descended to enchant the air that surrounded them, the rays of the sun and the stalks of grass. A people was always - and always would be, until its dissolution - the history it carried with it. And whoever denied it had simply never met the Vanedenis.
"WHO ARE WE?"
“VANEDENIS! VANEDENIS! VANEDENIS!”
A new energy, which came from a more remote place than Mummer's bones, pervaded his body, took possession of his words, his muscles and his history.
Mummer pulled up the huge axe amid the screams of soldiers and civilians.
Matthew felt tears run down his cheeks. He felt that he had just witnessed a scene of which he was neither the protagonist nor a worthy extra, but only a distant spectator; and his heart couldn't help but twitch harder, thanking fate for putting him there, in a position to see so much magic.
Mummer was lowering his axe when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something odd. Although there were no memories of Enchantments on the weapon capable of wounding its owner, blood now flowed from the hilt and bathed the ground.
A dark foreboding gripped his guts, but he quickly pushed it away. He placed the weapon at his side and lifted a punch in the air. His people cheered him loudly.
…
Day 21
Anna waved her elm staff cautiously. She was inside the forest for a daily training commissioned by none other than Maximilian.
Since she had argued with Camilla she had preferred to train alone. Her friend not only stopped talking to her, but looked at her with a hatred that Anna knew very well.
On the night of their fight, Anna had had a panic attack, but it had passed almost immediately. It was gone as if by magic. The idea that the Londoner with the black cloak was somehow responsible for it had passed her, yes, even if she had no certainty.
She would have liked to take some time to rest, except that Eudokia had urged her to seek greater power to defend herself. Her new class came at a price: her connection with nature was so intense that she could feel every sensation of the plants, every joy and every suffering, at maximum intensity. She also found that if she had been away from the forest for too long, she would begin to feel some stomach discomfort.
So she turned to Maximilian.
I would like to go through a much harder training than Camilla was given. I'm ready.
Not even she was sure that Eudokia had not directly influenced her, but between the woman with the black obsidian hair and her new class - [Druid]! - she seemed to have found new courage.
Anxiety and fear seemed to be intrinsic to her being, but Eudokia had guided her in understanding how to manage them, how to make them become a weapon.
Little woman, there are few things you shouldn't be afraid of. If animals, humans and other races have survived this long it is mainly because they were afraid of what was in front of them. Your goal is not to eliminate these feelings, but to use them as monsters by your side, dangerous companions who do nothing but alert you to what is in front of you.
Anna felt a blade press against her neck and a snort hit her neck from behind.
"You lose.” Todd removed the blade and took a couple of steps back. The girl waited for some comment about her lack of skill, but the man from Texas said nothing. He just bent at his knees and looked closely at his boots, which were covered in pieces of wood.
"If the bark is too weak, the Enchantment takes it away ..." Anna heard him complain about his boots, now damaged, one of Maximilian's many gifts to him. There was one thing that really left her speechless. Having been by Camilla's side and often in silence, she had learned to observe some social situations and understand where people's positivity and negativity went. With Maximilian and Todd, she couldn't really accept that the Londoner had nothing against the yankee; not only had he tried to kill Matthew after losing his mind, but his own class seemed like a curse sent by God himself.
"Tell me when you're ready. Focus more. Maximilian said that those rabbitmonkeys are faster than me and more than one assassin among their women can do much more than what I can do. Wizards are their prime targets. We don't have many, so you will be one of the first targets."
Anna saw Todd's face twitch as he spoke about Maximilian. His hands broke the bark in his hands in a gesture that the girl found not only angry, but intimate: he was in the throes of an inner conflict and showed it in his trembling, certain but convulsive movements.
"I don't think I'll be ready for battle," she commented.
Todd looked at her with contempt and Anna began to formulate her own defense, in vain. He interrupted her almost immediately: “Anna, my dear, we are in the midst of a bunch of madmen. It's not your fault. If you try to say anything, that's a problem, it works like this. Of course, now Maximilian has listened to some of my advice, but ... "
To be honest, Anna wasn't understanding much of what Todd was saying. Madmen, yes. Not prone to listening to other people's suggestions, of course. But what did that mean? Did she and he really have anything good to contribute with?
"No real logs, warehouses run by idiots ... At least they've implemented a new physical training regimen."
Todd muttered something more, but Anna didn't care to listen to him. He had this habit of muttering and complaining about things that mattered very little to her.
"Let's continue, come on, I'm ready."
Todd nodded and said: "Why didn't they accept my advice to start cooking ..."
He had begun to enumerate some dishes, some of which with names impossible to decipher for the poor Australian ears of the young woman ...
Then he slowly disappeared in front of her eyes.
Despite the complaints, few people were training as hard as him. Forced by Maximilian, he now followed a regime so hard that the clash with Anna was like a break for him.
Anna began to whisper to herself, using the link with the plants to detect any extraneous presence within the forest.
[Cat Eyes - Animal Shape]
The girl's pupils narrowed at the sides, becoming vertically elongated, with two narrow tips. Her vision sharpened and, although some colours lost their lustre, she began to see the movements of bushes, soil and dust.
Plants and animals had given her unique abilities.
[Barkskin]
Her skin thickened and became much harder than before.
Gaining that skill hadn't been pleasant. Maximilian had Strith cut her while she tried to communicate with the trees around her, asking for their help. To make the training as effective as possible, they didn't even stop when she pleaded for mercy. When she moved too much, Strith kicked her backwards.
…
Anna was panting heavily. The cuts on her body gave no sign of wanting to close. Todd's weapon had left marks that only Valeria or Maximilian could have healed; however, as the two were about to clash again, with Todd half disappeared again, something happened. A crow fell to the ground, dead. Anna frowned and moved towards the bird's corpse, when three more fell to her left. Todd deactivated his skill and lowered the daggers. He looked up and noticed other crows, seven, to be exact, falling to the ground dead.
"What the hell..."
They exchanged an alarmed look. The sensation they felt was the same as that they would have felt at the exit of the cinema after having seen a horror film, influenced to the point that anything would have seemed a bad omen.
Todd joined his hands in prayer and murmured words that were incomprehensible to Anna. “My mother-in-law is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter,” he said, as if these words might explain what he had just done.
“Where I come from it is said that the seventh daughters have magical powers and can ward off the evil eye. My mother-in-law taught me some of her prayers, but I never used them. I've always been sceptical about it. This seems to me the time to abandon scepticism."
Anna nodded. She would never expect to agree with Todd. She too felt that a few prayers would not hurt anyone.
“We've trained enough for today, we better go,” she said, and walked away without giving the crows another look.
…
Camilla considered herself a very elegant and refined girl. Moreover, she had always believed she had a great influence on the male sex. At the moment, she had decided to put some metaphorical claws on Neri, the second blacksmith in the village.
His muscular arms and rough beard had broken through her heart. Moreover, the boy seemed to reciprocate, at least to a certain extent, her interest.
Since the accident with Anna, her friend had stopped talking to her. However, she wasn't too worried. If she thought she could survive without her, she was very wrong. It had happened before that they had quarrelled, but it was never more than a month before Anna came back with her tail between her legs, begging Camilla to forgive her. Camilla adjusted her hair, so that it fell over her shoulders in the most sensual way possible. Then, she lowered the collar of her tunic, allowing her breasts to peek out from the neckline.
She didn't have two lousy melons like Anna, but two peaches of the perfect size for a woman. Despite having had some trouble controlling her weight loss in the past, after the ruinous end of a relationship, she had maintained nice breasts. She knocked on the door of the forge and wore one of the brightest smiles she had. Unfortunately for Anna, this time she wasn't interested in taking her back under his wing. Camilla had already decided that that coward could also have been raped by one of those monsters whose drawings Maximilian had shown. Honestly, she didn't care what became of her.
"I'm busy! Matthew, stop harassing me and go train!"
Camilla frowned for a moment. Unfortunately, her new beau was still friends with that effeminate cheerleader for Maximilian. A poor spineless guy who hadn't even wanted the execution of that other worm, Todd, when he had had the chance.
"Sorry! I just wanted to say hello!"
Camilla did not open the door. She put on the most hurt and sorry voice and flirted. She heard a metallic clang - something had just landed on the floor - a curse, and the hurried steps of her future boyfriend. If he continued to be so talented and proved successful enough, who knows, maybe even future husband.
"Sorry! I thought it was that idiot, Matthew! I was fixing his armour, Mummer tore it up in many places during one of their training sessions. Maximilian gave me the new materials only this morning, unfortunately. There are a lot of things to do and the battle is too close. Weapons, armour, arrows, nails, axes. Then there is Themistocles' project, look, let's leave it at that ... "
Camilla had learned from Neri, one of the few people she spoke to regularly, that Themistocles was building ships. She hadn't even bothered to think why and had limited herself to a few caustic comments about it.
"Don't worry, everything's fine."
Camilla put her hand on his sweaty, sooty arm, trying to hold back her disgust.
"Look here! You are getting more and more muscular! I'm afraid that if you continue like this, you will become the strongest in the village. "
If Neri had thought clearly, he would have realized how bad Camilla's attempts at flirting were. But a man is still a man. He smiled like a fool and blushed at the contact of her hand with his sweaty skin.
“Do you mind if I keep you company for a while? I levelled up! There's a lot of fire in your forge, it helps me level."
“It's quite hot,” he said. He was wearing protective clothing but still suffering greatly from the enormous heat given off by the forge. Thanks to some of his abilities, however, he could tolerate it better than he ever could on Earth.
“No problem”, Camilla entered the forge and took off the tunic, remaining only with very thin trousers and a band on the breast. Shoulders and bare abdomen began to make Neri sweat more intensely than the heat of the red-hot iron. Camilla watched the boy look at her with passion and desire impossible to hide.
There was something in his eyes screaming everything she needed to hear. She saw him take the bone tongs - which reminded her of that disgusting [Necromancer] - and pull a crucible out of the forge, being very careful of next steps. Neri poured the contents into a very thin mould. The next steps hypnotized Camilla, who forgot to activate her skills to train. Neri immediately put the crucible back in the forge and with the pliers grabbed the red-hot metal that had deposited in the mould.
With the hammer, he began to beat the long shapeless shape to form an extremely thin cylindrical bar. The blows of his hammer were precise and inexorable.
Camilla would never admit it, but there was something at that time of high craftsmanship that had unlocked an ancestral need in her. Neri's crude profession was part of what men had imprinted on their DNA. And the women had learned to recognize capable people and, in turn, to desire them.
Neri moved to a piece of armour that was nearby and, after making the bar much thinner than Camilla thought was possible with a simple hammer, he began to skewer the chain mail rings, create more rings with the glowing bar and detach them immediately after crossing them with existing ones. The workmanship of the chain mail was incredible, The rings were extremely small, so minute that no arrow would be able to pass through that diameter.
After about ten minutes, Camilla decided to think about her own business. She still had to train. Inside the forge it was as if there was a sort of essence of fire, the primitive matter of which this element was composed, the same matter was sought by this element. It was difficult for her to put it into words, but it was as if her abilities were being pulled out of the forge and her fire, as if two kindred souls had recognized each other and were moving towards each other. She still remembered how she had almost accidentally ended up in that place, exactly the day after having argued with Anna.
The ribbon she'd used to tie her hair - indispensable when training with fire, unless you wanted a Britney- mental breakdown-style cut - had flown away from her in a sudden gust of wind.
She had run after her accessory for several minutes before it somehow managed to enter the forge.
And only then had she met Neri, one of the few people she had really begun to like. Also, it seemed that her mana - as the Vanedenis and Maximilian had called it - had purposely responded to the impulses of the forge. She looked at the fantastic progress she had made in two weeks.
[Wizard - Level 9]
From what she knew, levelling up was extremely difficult. It could take years and years to get to 20. Humans seemed to ignore this logic, though, and she suspected she was the one at the highest level. She hadn't asked Neri what level he was at, but it had to be something like six or seven. She doubted that the man, for all the physical talent he had, could have surpassed her.
After all, magic was something naturally superior to the rest of the world. Indeed, it was what made up the world.
Although Maximilian had somehow cheated and appropriated a power that was not his, Camilla was sure that she would have overcome him without problems - him and that top model he took with him wherever he went. He would have made them suffer, first them and then Anna.
“Lucas and Anthony are worried about the battle; they have been having difficulty sleeping for several days. The coach seems to be totally unaware of the danger. "
Camilla tried to keep an expression of contempt from showing on her face. Worried? As far as they knew, it was possible that the whole issue of the battle was a farce set up by Maximilian and Themistocles. However, she could not yet enter certain conversations with Neri. For the moment, at least.
“We are all worried. I don't think any of us risked dying on Earth ... " The girl lowered her eyes and head, pulling her chest slightly forward and parting her lips. She had to look hurt and scared to break through Neri's heart.
"Don't worry," he said as he approached, "I'm sure Maximilian and Themistocles know exactly what they are doing."
Camilla trembled for half a second. Fortunately for her, Neri would have interpreted that gesture as terror. Instead, hatred filled her veins for those individuals. Neri was completely unaware of the dynamics that had developed between Camilla and the other Earthlings.
He knew she was Anna's friend, indeed she had been, but he didn't know what had led them to abandon each other - and luckily, Camilla thought.
Anna hadn't wanted to talk about it for a whole day. And when she had decided to speak again, the teeth that Camilla had blown out of her mouth had regrown.
What a bitch.
Just thinking about the risk that Anna had run to disfigure her smile forever put on Camilla a predatory need to kill her.
"Are you okay?"
Camilla smiled with the sweetest of her smiles, then cast a quick glance at Neri's lower abdomen. It looked like he had been near the fire for a long time, long enough to cook, as the iron he had worked was no longer the only thing that had hardened in the forge. Camilla stood up, dangerously close to his face.
"Now I have to go", she gave him two kisses on the cheeks to say goodbye and slipped away. Neri watched her figure leave the forge. It took him a few seconds before he could focus on his work again. While he was beating the iron, he thought of Lucas and Anthony, who were terrified and still hadn't found a real class to hold on to. In their life on Earth, twenty years or more had not been enough for them to decide what to do with their lives - and in this one, they had barely had three weeks.
The difference? Here they risked their lives. Neri took in his hand the special chain mail that he was preparing for Matthew with the new materials that had been given to him by Maximilian. The [Necromancer] had also told him how to use them, thankfully. Had it been otherwise, he would never have been able to work them. His level was still too low.
If he had not received a special forge from Maximilian and several tools made of bone, practically indestructible, he would not have been able to forge even a single mail ring.
He inspected the links between the rings and pulled from different directions, and in the meantime he reflected on their future.
"God damn..."
We are really at risk. Who knows what my mother, bless her soul, would say.
Neri thought about how Matthew managed to take everything with a smile and how instead he could barely smile in front of Camilla's awesome body. It wasn't his fault that he had been raised like that. He didn't despise humour, but he often did it with a serious expression on his face. At that moment, he would really appreciate Matthew's company.
Teasing him relaxed his nerves, but he knew he could not distract him from his training with Mummer; on the contrary, he was grateful that Camilla was coming to spend time with him, even though she was still so weak. She didn't quite understand what had happened between her and Maximilian, but she seemed to have decided to do everything alone; the results, unfortunately, did not look promising. Neri slammed his fist on the table and held his breath until his face turned red.
He shook his head, ashamed of his instinctive reaction and his tiny problems in the face of what they were about to face. He tried to concentrate on his work and lifted the armour with his hands to take a closer look at the rings. It was perfect.
“Look how beautiful it is. Matthew will love it. "
However, when the metal fabric finally unfolded completely, a huge gash opened between the rings. Not only had all the work done during the morning gone up in smoke, but the tear looked even bigger than the one he had repaired.
…
Tukker looked at his soldiers with hard eyes. The training they were subjected to was more like that of a hero than of ordinary soldiers. The training regimes of his people had always been dreadful, by that world standards, but in the village of Ankon everyone had agreed that it was time to raise the bar.
Maximilian had helped Mummer build a completely new routine. The soldiers did so-called back and forth sprints until they collapsed in place or until their muscles began to cramp.
Tukker himself had just finished his morning workout and, as he wiped the sweat from his face with a cloth, he observed a blonde girl sitting on the edge of their field.
For all minor wounds, she was there. From time to time Maximilian also asked Tukker to train people with real blades and allow them to skewer each other. And, if it wasn't enough, to make the clashes seem very heated, so as to create a situation of panic for Valeria.
The girl, as if she had read his thoughts, got up and came to meet him.
"The soldiers are too tired, [Captain]."
[Stormbreaker Captain], to be exact, Tukker corrected in his mind. He still couldn't believe all the levels he had received.
"Better tired than dead, miss."
“If you keep training them like this, they may not be mentally ready for battle. Excessive training risks burning them out. A free afternoon would make the next workout much more productive. "
Valeria put her hands on her hips and, despite being about thirty centimeters shorter than the man, tried to tower over him.
“Miss, ours is a matter of life or death. An afternoon off could make the difference for my soldiers between surviving or ending up all on a funeral pyre,” Tukker's tone soured.
“The performance of our soldiers depends on their mental state as much as on their physical state. If they can't look their wives and children in the face even once before the fight, what do you think will motivate them? "
Tukker was not used to insubordination. Or rather, he had not been used to insubordination before Maximilian.
“That's not good, [Captain], that's not good. We could all lose our lives and they are children, family men and also have the right to share a beer with friends."
The [Captain] found himself speechless. Unlike Themistocles, who had made his tongue his most terrible weapon, rhetoric was not a great tool of the Vanedenis. After all, even an average ignorant person on Earth possessed a Ciceronian dialectical knowledge by the rural standards of this planet. One of the soldiers with the new class approached the two, with a proud gaze and a body covered in blood and sweat.
“Healer Valeria, we don't need to rest. We stood for three days and three nights. We nearly defeated the [Necromancer] with these same hands. There are now enough levels and weapons between us that we can end this war and put the whole world back in its place.” Almost in unison, the other soldiers who had stopped let out a yell of assent. Only the few surviving veterans of the war frowned at them and took a big, meaningful look at Tukker. The [Captain] realized his mistake. The soldier's words had just highlighted the problem: all the new recruits who nodded along with him had drunk too much of their own culture. Now, they were all too full of themselves, and not of the invincible glory with which their ancestors had come out victorious in countless battles.
He had to prove them that it was not a class that would make them invincible. That there were monsters out there that would make the Ahalis look like the pack of rabbits they were.
Tukker took up his own weapon and grumbled that he was beginning to be too old from the dramas and rituals of his people. He moved Valeria aside as he filtered out her voice, far too deep for the girl's small size. Mummer had already taken care to teach their people's lore to both Tukker and soldiers, but not all of them had listened with the same degree of attention. There were people who had felt the spirit of their ancestors running through their veins; others, however, thought it was all glory and no sacrifice.
History had taught them to have a united front, to treat the values of their people with respect and sacredness. But now hubris threatened to make fodder of these warriors, who had not earned their levels by risking their lives, but by a shortcut.
“Soldiers, take out your weapons. The real ones."
Tukker paused a little and then shouted: “Maximilian! I need you to heal those who are about to die! "
The soldiers looked at each other in confusion, but still took up arms. What they didn't understand was how Tukker expected to train them. But then the sand and dust of the courtyard rose to form a distinct figure. A penis. Tukker did not flinch by half a millimetre: “Good. Soldiers, today I'm going to teach you the same lesson my instructor had to teach me and the other recruits when I was your age."
If they thought some levels counted more than years of experience and training, the depths of their arrogance and stupidity would be impossible to explore. Here was a generational lesson that Tukker would pass on - in theory, being Mummer the most experienced and strongest, he should have been the one to impart it.
However, the man had been modified by Maximilian to such a degree that perhaps they would have complained of such injustice. Tukker himself, on the other hand, had received the same treatment as them. But they were all young, none over thirty. The eldest of them, however, had ten years less war experience than he did, and he still couldn't believe how Themistocles had defeated him on the first day, honestly.
The [Captain] may not have been the best swordsman of his people and had seen few battles compared to some veterans, but he still came from traditional training. Tukker really hoped his calculations were correct. He had a dozen more levels than the others and a more powerful class. In the past, many people had died during these exercises. But they had always been necessary.
And, while the strongest had a great advantage, taking a person out without killing them required three times the skill to kill them: "Defend yourselves and show me if you are warriors or cowards."
The soldiers did not understand the meaning of those words until Tukker's blade passed from side to side one of the soldiers, leaving him in a pool of blood and with a punctured lung.
The [Captain] wielded a sword in his right hand and a small axe in his left. He had decided not to pull out the two-handed axe for the sake of mobility. And what warrior worthy of respect would be good with only one kind of weapon?
After throwing to the ground a second soldier, gasping for air, Tukker was attacked by the others. Their [Captain] had a dozen levels more than them, but if he thought he could defeat them all ...
"What are you doing?!"
Valeria was about to throw up in front of the bloody show.
Nobody cared about her. Tukker moved half a meter from the blade that came in his direction. He had heard stories of paladins able to dodge for half a centimetre the blows of opponents ... Fools, there were dozens of ways to extend the range of your weapon even without skills.
The Vanedenis did not have a beautiful fighting style, only a deadly one.
Tukker felt the air move behind his shoulders and threw himself into a forward somersault, still taking part of the blow, but cutting one of the warriors' knees with the small axe.
The warrior shifted all his weight to the other leg without frowning too much and tried to pierce Tukker with his weapon.
Fortunately, no one was trying to behead the others. Not even Maximilian could have healed such a wound. But there were no certainties about Maximilian's skills.
Tukker saw two soldiers, who had picked up their shields, trying to send him against two others who had spears.
He had to admit, he was very proud of their training and quick, accurate responses.
Tukker threw the axe at one of the warriors behind and hit him in the stomach without even looking. He then put his hand to his duffer bag and pulled out, from an incredibly small space, another axe. This time, he feinted before jumping over the heads of the two soldiers in front of him.
Maximilian had replied some Enchantments and, in the last week, they would distribute them to all the soldiers for their special training. They already had an incredible strategy, and the artifacts the [Necromancer] would give them would be the icing on the cake. However, letting people train with artifacts early on would slow their growth as warriors.
The new training regimes were working wonders.
Tukker tapped the ring on his index finger with his thumb and his descent was suddenly accelerated. He caught one of the recruits off guard, who still managed to leave a large wound on his thigh before he fell to the ground to bleed to death.
The man felt a warm energy envelop his leg and saw the blood coagulate visibly.
It's a lesson for everyone, playing a little dirty is necessary. Thank you, [Necromancer].
He looked for a moment at the bodies on the ground and at Valeria, a blond head that stood out between the red of the blood and the brown of the leather armour. The young woman was assisting one soldier with all the magic she had in her body. Her class was very rare, as it took great control over one's mana to do such a thing.
Another miracle of Maximilian.
Tukker continued to massacre the soldiers, even throwing his own blood in their faces if it was necessary to distract them; it was an old tactic. If you really had to get hurt on the battlefield, you might as well put your wound to good use.
After demolishing about thirty soldiers, all the younger ones who had not pulled back immediately, Tukker put his sword on the ground and put some of his weight on it. He had lost a lot of blood and, even if Maximilian had continued to heal him secretly, it had not been easy to knock down all the recruits.
The wounds of some soldiers had already healed, although they were on the ground unconscious.
No one had used the new abilities of their modified classes to keep them from dying. If it hadn't been for the [Necromancer], then, a good three-quarters of the recruits would have been dead.
Ankon had long since run out of potions and had no alchemist capable of creating such precious resources in a battle.
Yes, no alchemist, but a [Necromancer].
Some soldiers came up and poured green potions into people's mouths. It was the first time Tukker had seen colour-coded potions - that's what the man had called them. Stamina, green. Mana, blue. For wounds, red.
How had he made them?
Tukker had heard these words from Themistocles and, in a sense, agreed: Maximilian was a natural phenomenon like the ocean. He had to be accepted without asking too many questions or trying to submit him to a single task. They just had to pray that his first storm didn't happen before the battle.
Better not ask too many questions and make sure the soldiers were all okay. The lesson handed down from generation to generation had finally been taught. They were strong. They were also and above all angry, in this historical moment. But no one could have turned the war so easily. Tukker was almost on the verge of correcting himself as he thought of a person among them, someone who could have accomplished the feat so longed for.
Not one of them, but almost. Just then, that hero's adept crossed the courtyard. Strith followed a very rigorous training program, for the most part kept secret by Maximilian. The Londoner spent more time with her than with Eudokia, teaching her how to fight and making great speeches. The girl, who had also been famous among soldiers for her dangerous outbursts, was now more controlled, but not calm. She was like a bowstring, always taut. Tukker looked away from her and walked over to Valeria, who was making sure everyone was okay.
Even if it wasn't his direct intention, Tukker had just gotten to know that Valeria would be cold enough to hold out on the battlefield. The job of a healer was to stay behind the lines, providing his services to all the people who would need them. He still did not understand how Maximilian could have recreated her class so easily, when it occurred to him that this time there was probably Eudokia's hand. The woman was very humble and did not like to take credit for the things she did, even if some of the Londoner's recent achievements were due to her.
Eudokia was responsible for the new classes, for the manufacturing methods of most of the Enchantments Maximilian had made. Although they weren't sure, they thought she had personally built the forges that Drenger and Neri were using.
Maximilian was a miracle, but that woman wasn't a joke either.
Returning to the woman who was laying her hands on the wound of one of the warriors and quietly reciting formulas without precise syllables, Tukker reflected on how different the life of these Earthlings was. Then he looked around him. “Let everyone take tomorrow's day as rest. Give the wounds time to heal."
The wounds, Tukker knew, took no more than five minutes to heal completely; lost blood also regenerated itself automatically, if not too much had been lost. And even then, the [Stormbreaker Captain] would have wagered that Maximilian's magic would have solved such a problem as well. He went to the toilets, another concept he had never known before Maximilian's arrival in Ankon.
The Londoner had decided to destroy all the chamber pots in the village and add an extra room to each house, equipped with strange pots that he had called a sink, cesspool and bidet. Above the hand wash, which Tukker began to use in conjunction with a brush and towel to remove all blood from his body, was a perfectly shiny reflective surface. A mirror. For them, it was something never seen before outside the noble houses and in particularly wealthy families. And even in those, it was silver or other metals polished to such an extent as to become reflective, but never so perfect. What Maximilian had created was completely different. Tukker had never seen a work of art, outside of magic itself, capable of perfectly recreating the image of whoever was in front of it.
Probably, the magic had something to do with that creation. It was impossible to imagine that it was only the result of craftsmanship and science, an art that the Earthlings often invoked. The first time he saw his reflection on that surface he had remained breathless. It was the first time he really saw himself, that he could appreciate the dark skin under his eyes and the first wrinkles that appeared on his face. His forehead was furrowed with folds that disappeared when, with no small effort, he managed not to frown.
It wasn't something that came naturally to him. He was known for his calm among the soldiers, and for how impassive he was and difficult to alter; however, when he saw his own image so clearly, able to pour out all his defects upon him, all the time that had passed and was passing, he had felt the equivalent of a boulder falling on his stomach. Seeing his own reflection in this way had left him silently bewildered. As the man cleared himself, he heard a sharp noise.
He looked up, almost reaching for his sword, but he saw nothing but a crack that divided the mirror in half. It was vertical and almost perfectly perpendicular to the ground, as if it were not natural, but created by something or someone with a particularly sharp pair of scissors.
…