You crawl, betray, and destroy. You strike the innocent and you fool the trusting. It is a base point in life, where one's value dwindles into non-existence. Yet you refused to bend at a point in which things no longer mattered, in which the consequences were irrefutable and inevitable. A call of the heart, screaming that it is alive, that beyond the excrement and rot, still exists some form of dignity.

You have completed a hidden Trial initiated by your Limit Tester. You have gained a unique rank B character variation of a true sin.

Masked Pride

Contrary to your self-condemning beliefs, there, deep within the crevices of your frigid soul, resides a corner in which honor and self-worth swell.

You have gained high resistance to any Reconnaissance skills.

Every parameter is decreased by 20%. Activating Masked Pride will increase every parameter by 40%. The cooldown of Masked Pride is duration toggled multiplied by 100.

The passive effect of Masked Pride possesses complete immunity to Reconnaissance related skills.

This character trait has removed Arrogance.

This trait has impacted your evolutionary path.

You have failed the quest Monster Nest Reconnaissance.

L opened one irritable eye to witness a singular ray of sun sneak through the branches above him, somehow landing directly on his eye. He groaned, his body sore and his mind aching from yesterday's hefty usage of mana. The birds above him were in full mood, cackling their sounds wildly and without restraint to any who wished to catch a moment's respite under the tree. Barely a few hours had passed before dawn broke, forcing L into one of his lesser pleasant moods of grogginess and general despondency towards any breathing entities. He cracked his shoulders and flexed his bruised neck. Parts of his face burned fiercely. The smoldering iron and droplets of boiling blood had scathed his complexion, leaving two large tears on his face, one on his upper right cheek, and the other slightly below it and above his lips. It had already scabbed over, courtesy of his high darkin regeneration, and was now becoming a mighty itch that begged a tight scratching.

The rain had stopped, leaving the world wet and substantially cleaner. As L stood up and attempted to put together his mind into a near coherent, barely functioning piece of work, he noticed that the forest in front of him rather looked delightful; the sun broke through tiny holes, traversing difficult paths to fall and reflect upon the million different droplets residing on top of the flowers and leaves of the greenery around him. It smelled of earth, pleasant and sweet and without the fur and other unidentifiable smells which sometimes accompanied it. Once again, as he slid through the mushy and cool earth, L thanked whoever came up with the idea of removing flies. The tale goes that some all-powerful magician, one who would move mountains and create castles daily, finally became utterly exasperated with how flies would always find a way inside his manor and buggered him as he attempted a pleasant walk, that he simply went ahead and gotten rid of all of them. Some type of bug that ate all the other bugs or something.

As everyone who advised the magician against this predicted, not only did this remove all the bugs, but everything else that ate bugs. It also removed all the things which ate the things which ate bugs, and so on. In the end, thousands of species other than bugs became extinct, causing a couple widespread and deadly world famines. Still, however, many thought it was worth the price--many being only the magician, as he was the most powerful being at the time.

L stepped out of the forest with a deep sigh. He liked being in there. It would be better if all the chirping birds and tireless cicadas would drop dead, but as it stood, it was his favorite place to do absolutely nothing in. The village wasn't far off from where he was. He had rested a little ways off from the forest line, and though that was a flawed tactical move on his behalf, L had little tolerance for watching humanoids munching on other humanoids-- it always brought a nasty taste to his mouth. The gate was open, allowing the stench he had been hoping to avoid seep through like a noxious disease. It mixed with the sweet dew of the earth, off-setting an otherwise great day.

As L passed the front gate, a sword came down from the side. L stepped passed it, towards its corner and twisted, uppercutting the Bugbear as he attempted to yank his sword from the soft mud. A few teeth flew up as the Bugbear’s head flopped up and down, its chin visibly dented from L’s gauntleted hand. The iron then fell away, returning to flesh as a swarm of Vathiás surrounded L.

“Kleha! Bluhkla dee!” one of them said, stepping forward.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Nglo alika dos who!” a Bugbear said, tossing one of the Vathias a few meters into the air. “Dos fus ra!” he said again, this time louder and with more threatening gestures. After a moment of hesitation, everyone scattered, but not after necking the knocked out Bugbear for everything he had, including the rag which hid his shriveled penis.

I guess porn was setting unrealistic expectations, after all, L thought with a shrug. He ignored the rest of the squabbling critters and walked on. They probably forgot for a moment who to thank all this for. The rain had washed away the blood on the streets but the smell and the signs of struggle remained throughout the village. Large mud fields, broken timbers, shards of broken iron, and rogue pieces of leather. The doors were broken, allowing a glimpse into unsavory scenes. Female goblinoids, other than the short role the male played, produced as much off-springs as their food supply allowed it, and the food supply did allow it. Every little goblin was eating to the point of incapacitation, and some L noticed, had even died from over-consumption. A tragic ending, really, but hardly anyone could pity them at this point.

L found Braj within a throng of purple and brown goblins. His sniffles, grunts, and at some odd occasions the raising of the armpit did not prove to be a very viable method of communication. He seemed to have a very difficult time trying to explain whatever the man, or woman, depending on you ask, wanted to explain. Upon noticing L, Braj separated himself from the rest of the crowd. He sniveled and groaned a couple of times and every dispersed. Sweat was going down his skin, sticking on the crevices of his wrapped skin. He was not a pretty sight, as far as Vathiás typically went.

“Dis eh bad bad bad! Dus why!” he said, his arms animated and the eyes in between an abundance of skin wet with tears. He swallowed, coughed, and then spit. “Ematha? I never nos this! Daed! Daed!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Braj,” L lied, using the substantially easier name. There was no reason to call him by the other one.

“Noar! Horror! Noar! Daed! Why!” He said again, his language skills improving.

“Look, there is a lot of work to be done. The sun is up, your kin will need to slee-”

“Blauk! Blauk on them! Them alok everyone! Everyone! Malia! Jroll! Luke!”

No, that last one was me, L thought with a grimace. The skin of his throat, now permanently disfigured, began to itch. “Look, Braj, we already went over this. It’s either us or them dirty scoundrels."

“Small locos? Tosros? Malia?!” he screamed, and then almost fell over.

“Yes, even them. Kids who would grow up to be marauders, who will hunt your children and enslave you. Women who will give birth to those marauders, and raise them to be the way they want. Is that what you want? You think the way Malia played you is fine? The way Jroll betrayed you? You're a coward if you think they were decent people. You're dooming your own children. Yes, remember, they are yours now. You can send them to their deaths, or you can raise them,” L said, then shook his head. “No Braj, they are not innocent. No human is innocent. They might not have killed anyone, anything, or burned the earth around them, but they are benefiting. They are benefitting from the land stolen from the elves and the dwarfs, from the forests and its inhabitants, from the endless amounts of species they killed off for their own self-benefit. They might not have done anything now, but believe me, that’s only because they hadn’t had the opportunity. Save your kin, Braj, over those which looked down on you, over those which detested your intelligence!" L said, his voice livid and passionate, and then yawned. “Mhm. Anyway, what’s done is done.”

“Nuk lo-”

His hands snug around Braj’s throat, lifting him up from his toes. Braj struggled and gasped and fruitlessly attempted to claw at L’s hands with broken nails. “How appropriate. Everything has been appropriate of lately, you know. But you seem to forget: You are my servant, and I am no human. I will not tire himself over your self-soothing morales,” L said as he let go of Braj. He fell limply, holding his throat tenderly. A few Vathiás began to eye them, and some even crept closer.

“These are my commands. Keep the gates open, we can’t let anyone find out we’ve taken over this village.”

“Somk...eckakped,” Braj wheezed up from the floor.

“No, no one escaped. No one escapes from the devil. I had my minions about, sticking a blade through any who ran into the forest. And those which my minions did not get, she got. You know what I’m talking about, you remember don’t you?”

Braj nodded feebly, which was good, because L had forgotten the name of the thing he was talking about. Braj then began to struggle as he attempted to pull himself up, cursing and sniffling. L thought about giving him a hand, thought about trying to keep the act going, but immediately thought otherwise. The point no longer was there. Braj glanced questioningly at him, but L did not budge. He simply looked down on him with half-open, half-dead eyes.

L then heard bones creaking. They threatened to shatter, shaking viciously, but held as Braj lifted himself up with his own thin legs and thinning arms. Getting a spine, are we? In that body? Oh, how tragic. How fucking tragic. Everything has been tragic, ironic...but no longer hilarious. He shook the thought off. There would be time for that question. “Use the Trows to lure in unsuspecting travelers and kill them. We’re safe from the armies. It will take too long to organize a punitive force, and by that time we would have gone by then with every item of value. Make sure no one leaves the village, you hear? Make sure everyone sleeps. We have more work to get to, at night. Tell them there would be even more food. More than they could handle, actually, so make sure they rest easy. We need to be discreet about this….servant!” L said with a pump of energy at the end. After Braj nodded, L turned a heel and walked away. “Well, see ya. I’ll go rummage around the village. Take care of anything else I missed,” he said, yawning again. He stretched his shoulders and scratched the side of his head, his eyes becoming increasingly irritable.

"Hkow tdo wa a saik?" Braj said, scratching a cheek.

L stopped in his feet, grunting. He turned around, his arms hanging off his shoulders with great difficulty. "When you get to live as long as I have, Braj, you began to realize that we all ask the same questions. The language and the words are different, but the content always stays the same," he said, and turned around again. He waved a hand. "That's one answer. The other is that you just gotta guess a lot and be really ambagious. At some point, you'll be right, and if you're wrong, then hey, no one can call you on it!"