Spring arrived. I celebrated my fourteenth birthday (eighteen and a half Earth years - just multiply it by 1.33) with my folks at the Eleon village. I threw a feast. During the party, I talked to the local leaders and several hunters. I'd updated my level to seventy-one and that scared away any suitors my mother could find. The whole thing would end as just one happy party if not for the news.
I was talking to elder Molly. The following conversation happened.
"Oh, little Rosie," elder Molly cooed. "I'm feeling so well since you visited me! But you are a rascal! Why didn't you tell me it was you? I wish..." Her tone went from happy to sad, worried maybe.
I cupped her hand in mine, "What's wrong, elder Molly? Is it something I can help?"
"My grandson, Doug. He hadn't returned yet. It's nothing. He might be delayed by some problem."
"Molly, if you are worried, then it is important. I know Doug. He's a strong and fast hunter. If he's not back and neither are his mastiffs, then something is very wrong. Where did he go?"
"Before the winter, we found some foreign soldiers wandering in the forest. They were making a map of the forest paths and rivers. The hunters decided to keep an eye on them, and the last shift at the advanced station was Doug and his team."
"Foreign soldiers?" I asked. It was worrisome. I knew the country would be invaded soon, but the Eleon lands were too out of the way for an invading army. Unless they wanted to use it to stage a sneaky entry.
"I'll look into it. I promise, tomorrow I'll go there and search for Doug."
Elder Molly cried. Doug wasn't her last relative, but she had just two or three other grandchildren in other villages.
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Moving twelve kilometers every teleport between trees, I quickly made my way to the general region of the hunter post. It was a hovel disguised as a hillock with a series of tunnels on the top where an Eleon could crawl into and keep watch from.
I found the carcasses of the dogs first. Picked clean by scavengers, probably birds by the way they were. With Nenandil's help, we searched the hillock base. We found no trace of the hunters but there was one clue. A bundle of parchment sheets tied with twine pressed between two slabs of leather. A journal. Reading it, I found that Doug was there and the foreign scouts came several times, searching for the hunters. The last entry told of a fight that broke between one of the hunter teams that was returning with food and the last line read, "they found us."
After a short flight around the site as a needle-tail swift, I found the ghost of one of the hunters. He told me of the combat and how the soldiers used a smoke bomb to force everyone out of the hovel. Our hunters had no choice. I purified him and he passed on.
For the combat to be that one-sided, that was not a scout team. They were already the advance troops, sent to undermine the resistance and prepare the path for the supply train.
I few around the forest as fast as I could, searching for their trail markers. Two hours later, I found their camp. I sensed eighteen sentients, twelve humans. I dropped {Force Binding} on all of them and landed as I shifted into my normal form. Get a silk bodysuit from storage, use {Summon Arms & Armament} to dress up. A flash of naked flesh but I didn't care.
They were struggling to get out of the bindings but so long I paid the MP cost, they would stay there. I searched the six non-humans and found two dwarves, two half-elves, and two beast-kin. I hoped they had Eleon prisoners, but no. I assassinated all of them, reaping thirteen billion Exp. Then I interrogated their ghosts.
My suspicion was confirmed. They were an advanced engineering team that was building a wagon trail and charting the lands. They intended to annex the Eleon region and use it as a staging grounds to expand into the unclaimed lands to the south.
I also got their maps, their whole camp actually in storage. With Nenandil riding bird-me, we raid the other camps. No Eleon prisoners and the spectral soldiers I recruited and interviewed told me they took none.
At the end of the day, I had sixty ghosts with me. These I would only release when their invading nation was in shambles.
I flew back to our village and told my parents I had to go on a mission. I didn't deliver the news to elder Molly.
Then I went on a round trip at the neighboring kingdoms to collect intel and supplies. I mixed Apricot and Allorala's shapes as they were mature, adult women. If I used {Parcial Shift} on Alloralla's form to replace the eyes, chin, ears, breasts, and voicebox with Apricot's, nobody would suspect the base shape was an elf.
Disguised and in stealth mode, I entered the army staff HQ of the country nearest to the Eleon region. It was damn easy to teleport from one shadow to the next. My goal was their invasion plans. I feared for their safety. If what I found here confirmed what the ghosts told me that they were planning to harm the Eleons of that region, I'd have to decimate their army.
Yes, that was pre-emptive. Cruel maybe. But if I wanted the Eleons to survive the coming invasion, they needed help. Their plans for settling in the region did not include the small folk. We weren't considered not even worth of slavery. Time to prove them wrong.
At the main meeting room, I found a person. A big human. I moved to a shadow in the room using my favorite shape for infiltration, the Etruscan shrew.
He snickered, "I know you are there, [Assassin]. Show yourself," He said.
The guy's soul shone brightly to my senses. If I had to guess, he had a score of forty or something like that. Quite impressive.
I walked silently, trying to find a way to get near him and glimpse at his status. I needed to get within one meter.
"You think you'll sneak up on me? Try again. People better than you have tried already."
I was level eighty-nine. And not a rogue but a mage. I found the table and moved to the underside. From there, I approached his waist. What I sensed wasn't good. The guy was fully decked in plate armor. Gothic plate armor. I didn't even know they already existed. I used {Appraisal} on him.
> Level 77 Warrior
Yeah, unless I cheesed this fight I was fucked. The armor was enchanted. Thinking about my options, I decided to use plan xenomorph two. I became incorporeal and jumped from the tabletop to his leg. I went through the armor with some resistance and caught the inside of his leg with {Solid Manipulation}.
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He felt the tug and said something, but I couldn't hear inside his leg. I quickly climbed up, using his own tissues as handholds. He started to move around. I felt him jostling back and forth but I didn't care. I kept climbing. I found the pelvis bone and from there I rushed up to his spine. I reached the heart and decided I needed to breathe. I moved to his lungs and entered his trachea. There, with my ghostly nostrils immersed in the air of his breathing, I restored my oxygen levels.
"It's inside me," I heard him shout with dread from inside his airways. A weird experience.
I resumed my trip. back to the spine, and up the neck to finally reach the cranial cavity. I cast an ice spike inside his brain and stored the whole body once I got the death notification. Should've done that with the Dragon, I mused.
> Assassination Successful. Contract Fulfilled.
>
> For killing level 77 [General], you earned 2,072,541,240 Exp (base 59,290 x 34,956 multilpliers)
I sent the body and his gear to storage and triggered {Fey Invisibility} as I little shrew-me fell to the ground before two horrified soldiers. {Force Binding} and two ice spikes and their bodies went into storage as well.
Soldiers were hitting the door but it would take time for them to get past my boulder. While Nenandil studied the maps and plans the general was plotting, I went around the room and cleaned it. The last thing was the table and maps.
Against my new chest-burster technique, they didn't have much chance. They would have to find me, then they would have to hit me. All that before I killed them. One hour later, I'd killed all the officers in the headquarters. The general's ghost confirmed it.
That's when she arrived. A female magician of exquisite power entered the building. I knew she was female because she was pregnant. Detection spells swept the building.
"So many dead. And I can't control these specters. Show yourself, necromancer!"
She could see the ghosts. I snuck slowly toward her. She kept casting spells. With {Grandmaster Surreptitiousness} these detection spells and wards had little chance to find me. I was about to jump on her when she shot a lightning bolt at me.
> You were struck by Lightning Bolt. You were healed by 127 HP. You absorbed 535 MP. (Base 2,500 (-375) x 1,75 Mind x 3 Magic x 3 Skill x 2 perk x 0,4 magic eater x 0.55 Lucky Evasion x 0,75 resistance x0,75 affinity x0,03 resistance)
But I was pushed back by the impact.
"Lightning heals you. Let's try stone then!"
I jumped at her and she threw a stone spike. I was incorporeal and it flew right past me. I hit a force shield and start to push myself through.
"Persistent little bugger!"
"Stand still. This is a {Royal Geas}!" I shouted back. And there went 2,000 SP. Her Soul score was forty.
She started to squirm and take damage. I paid the 2,000 SP per second. I took twenty seconds to cross her force shield and finally land on her face. I put a contract on her and scuttled to her throat.
**CHOMP**
> Assassination Successful. Contract Fulfilled.
>
> You killed level 87 magician. You earned 2,645,819,640 Exp (base 75,690 x 34,956 multilpliers)
I Sent the body and head to storage and talked to the ghost.
"Alicia, archmage of this Kingdom! Murderer! I shall haunt you for all eternity."
I shook my snout,
"You murdered my child!" She keened.
She was struggling against my hold. I purified her. She took two hundred thousand SP.
I did and she passed on. She must've had a hell of a Willpower and Ego scores to keep herself self-conscious in that state. I felt bad for the fetus. But my path was set the moment I heard about the missing hunters.
These noblemen and women I killed had children, parents, the likes. I don't doubt they too want vengeance. But now we must feed the engine of destruction. Because people were too set in their ways to listen. To take a step back to see with neutral eyes, without imposing their mindset on everything.
I thought about making an example of the King of this place. Kill him and issue a proclamation. That would only point them in...
Yeah. I could point to them wherever I wanted. Should I? Send these people to attack another neighbor instead of moving on to conquer the Eleon territory? No. I wouldn't. Let them figure out who they'll kill or die against on their own. I just needed to dismantle their army enough that they couldn't sortie out to conquer without leaving themselves defenseless.
With that in mind, I raided their armories. I cleaned the headquarters. Books, armor, weapons, siege supplies. Then I moved to the palace. A day later, the King's castle, siege granaries, and treasury were empty. I stole everything. To make sure they knew they were impoverished, I used a classical spell on the vault door from inside.
"{Delayed Blast Fireball}!" Overcharging it with two million MP.
I sunk into the floor a few meters when it went off. The shockwave rocked me even inside the castle's foundations. I moved out and followed the King. The explosion hadn't damaged the castle's structure too much but it set everything in the basement on fire and even melted the rock.
At the sight of his treasury empty, the king screamed. "Get me the archbishop of Bundeus! I want to know who's responsible for this!"
Would Bundeus rat me out? I couldn't risk it. I crawled over the ceiling and dropped down over the King, becoming incorporeal before reaching his body. I entered his skull and froze his brains. Just like what happened to the general, I stored the body and turned invisible at the same time.
> Assassination Successful. Contract Fulfilled.
>
> You killed level 89 [KIng]. You earned 2,768,864,760 Exp (base 79,210 x 34,956 multilpliers)
"The King! The King has vanished!" One of the knight guards, level sixty-three shouted. "Sound the alarm!"
They rushed up the stairs and I followed, latched to an armor backplate. They went to the inner palace to find the crown prince, now a recently promoted King.
"My father! Who did that?"
I shifted into a bumblebee bat and flew off. The knight argued with the new King and the Queen dowager when the archbishop of Bundeus arrived.
"My liege!"
I dropped on his shoulder and whispered. "You shall convey no divine message today. Ask your patron," I said thinking of the King so it didn't become gibberish. "I wish you no ill will, but you'll die today if you say anything."
I flew off. I think he heard the flapping of wings. The archbishop stopped and prayed. I could feel the divine magic surround him. Then he looked up and said, "It shall be done as you will."
"What? Archbishop Patroclus! What has Bundeus to say about this?"
The ecclesiastic looked firmly. "My liege. Bundeus has spoken. He said, 'The former King drew the ire of ancient power and paid with his life. Seek not retribution and ruin won't visit your House.' And so said Bundeus."
For a divine message, that was pretty accurate.
The new King, however, wasn't happy. "My father was murdered!" He roared. "I shall have my vengeance. So I swear on my crown! {Royal Pledge}! May the murderer of my father face my wrath!"
I knew that perk. It wasn't one I'd pick. It was basically an all-in bet like in hold'em. You gained a bonus to fulfill your pledge, but if you failed, you lost everything. It was much like my [True Hero]'s {Last Stand} but less specialized for combat with smaller bonuses but versatility. And he didn't have to die at the end. But if he lost, he was no longer King.
He wobbled on his feet. The kid had a decent Soul score and Royal Classes almost always gave a bit of SP. A natural-born prince had one since level one. His pledge affected me.
> You cannot leave the area until your challenge is complete.
Damn. It has that other tidbit. It was all-or-nothing. With a sigh, I dove inside his chest cavity. Then I blew his heart with a firebolt. This should be illegal.
> Assassination Successful. Contract Fulfilled.
>
> You killed level 59 [KIng]. You earned 1,216,818,360 Exp (base 34,810 x 34,956 multipliers)
>
> The Royal Pledge has been fulfilled. You won.
>
> CONGRATULATIONS. YOU ARE NOW THE KING OF WINDEMERE.
>
> You gained the perk: Human Royalty (very rare): You are part of the human royalty. Your species perk acquisition rate is now one human perk every two levels. You gain one extra Human perk for every ten species levels. All humans' reactions shift one step in your favor. You gain two extra HP per level.
>
> You gained 12 retroactive Human perks.
>
> You gained 178 retroactive HP.
>
> You gained the title {KIng}.
Well, fuck.
While I didn't mind free perks, that shit was too good to be true. Why was I crowned a "human" King? Because of the pledge? A sense of dread washed over me. I think I'd been had.