It was a long walk to the Wild Man Colony. Unlike the Silent Hand’s tunnels that undoubtedly ran underneath our location, there were no stable roadways to follow. It was us – the Seekers –, the Shuten Douji and his subordinates – including his brother –, and General Denk. He didn’t want to bring his Wild Men with him in the event things went sour, though he did his best to word that in a way that didn’t suggest Somnia would let them be killed. She seemed to be enjoying her “God Queen” role a bit too much.
At any rate, it was about an hour before any signs of civilization were visible from the dense foliage. Before long, we’d made our way into Wild Man Colony. The place was oddly sophisticated, moreso than Oni Village, honestly. It was structured like those aluminum-cast ant colonies. There were rounded clay houses connected by clay tubes that rose even higher than the trees at some points. There were wooden terraces built onto some of the rounded houses at odd intervals, each protruding from houses that were significantly larger… wider than those above and below them.
Despite the vastness of the Wild Man Colony, none of them were outside. I’d expected to see at least one on the way here. According to General Denk, we hadn’t killed nearly as many as we thought we had.
“Come out,” The Wild Man General called. “I know you bastards’re waitin’ on us! You ain’t foolin’ nobody!”
Suddenly, the ovular doors to three terraces swung open almost in unison. A Wild Man stepped out of each door, each of them taller and more physically imposing than Denk. Perhaps it was the angle, but they looked to be taller than General Denk.
General Denk whispered to us. “Top to bottom that’s Clez, Flix, and Viard.”
“I thought you didn’t know much about them?” Somnia asked.
“I-I don’t, God Queen Somnia. Their names are all I know about them. Honest!”
“Mhmm.”
I scanned the three newcomers starting with the Wild Man highest up dressed identically to General Denk.
NAME: GENERAL CLEZ
APPROXIMATE LEVEL: 154
CLASSIFICATION: COMBAT
I moved my gaze down to the Wild Man dressed in black robes.
NAME: GENERAL FLIX
APPROXIMATE LEVEL: 226
CLASSIFICATION: HYBRID
And finally, the Wild Man dressed like he’d robbed a zombie.
NAME: GENERAL VIARD
APPROXIMATE LEVEL: 124
CLASSIFICATION: KNOWLEDGE
“So, the traitor returns home. How bold.” General Viard began, speaking in a posh Burnish accent.
“Hope you got something good out of this dumb shit, Dank” General Flix snorted. “And I hope you trust them. Because if we don’t kill you – and we will kill you –, they will.”
“It’s General Denk,” He corrected. “And I have faith in God Queen Somnia. Far more than that lunatic Zakaria.”
General Flix sneered. “He might be an idiot, but he’s getting us out of this shithole. I didn’t believe in him back then, but he’s making real strides. I mean look at us!” He gestured to the Douji brothers. “We got Oni royalty on our doorstep! We have the power. Us! Pretty soon, we’ll have power over Minashire!”
A booming sea of roars sounded from every direction with those words. They were surrounded. This was an ambush. Judging by the poorly disguised look of terror on General Denk’s face, I doubted he led us to it intentionally. Either that or he was a better actor than I–
Shuten Douji raised a lazy hand and blasted a ball of actual fire the size of one of the Wild Man's houses into the distance. The fireball tore through a sea of trees like a hot knife through butter before exploding with an ear-shattering bang. All the while, the Oni king kept his eyes on General Flix.
“That was… four percent,” Somnia whispered to us. She took her HUD Glasses off and wiped sweat from her brow. “We’re at 28% now.
“Levels don’t matter, right? That shouldn’t bother you.”
“Yeah… yeah, you’re right. Still. Long way to go, y’ know?”
I agreed. Fallen Star shook against his cage, demanding I hear his desire to have that kind of power. And to my own surprise, I… let him. I wanted that kind of power, too. Needed it.
We wanted the same exact thing: Power.
That was an important revelation. A vitally important revelation. But for the third time today, I couldn’t afford to give it more thought at the present moment.
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”Is this how you’ve trained your men to behave?” General Viard scoffed at Somnia. “To kill with no restraint? I know what your goal is here. You wish to convince us to join your cause and fight against Zakaria, no? Well, if you want us to fight with you, show us that you can control your dogs.”
Somnia snapped out of the stupor Shuten Douji left him in to respond in kind. “Don’t be mistaken. I’d like to convince you to fight on our side. We have alternative methods to getting our way.”
General Flix stepped closer to the edge of his terrace. “Like what? You dickheads can’t touch–”
Yugo snapped his fingers, and an Elemental Burst filled with Electricity-Attuned Aura exploded at General Flix’s feet. The man screamed as he fell to his knees, forced to hold himself up with the terrace’s railing.
“We’re fine with killing you four and converting your troops to our cause individually.”
This was a bit of a bluff, I knew. There was no telling whether these Generals could revive, and there was no telling how amenable to new leadership the Wild Men would be once their leader was dead. Still, intimidation was the first and most important step in Somnia’s conversion plan.
“Make your choice,” Somnia began. “Live and join me, or die with Zakaria. You have three seconds. Decide.”
General Flix roared. “You bastards ain’t killin’ shit! Don’t think just because you got Flix to tuck his tail that means you’ll make us budge! We’re real Wild Men! We fight until we die!”
“Two,” Somnia said softly. The air changed around her like it had in her first encounter with Zakaria. There was no more room for negotiation. Even if they agreed, they were already dead.
“You should have stayed in your home!” General Viard shouted. “Our battle with the Oni didn’t involve you. We fight for the betterment of our–”
“One,” Somnia interrupted.
“You human brutes!” General Viard spat. He stood taller than he had been and shouted as loud as his lungs would let him. “Wild Men! It is time for–”
“Zero.”
A sea of Wild Men chanted in response to General Viard’s call. They poured out of the Wild Man Colony from our left. There were so many I couldn’t even count them. In the end, I never needed to count them. Somnia unleashed a cloudy wave of black and red aura that killed every single one of them. It wasn’t an instant death like with Shuten Douji’s fireball, either. They screamed and writhed in agony as aura poured out of them like popped balloons as blood seeped out of every hole on their body; nostrils, ears, mouths, eyes. Just like that, she’d killed all of them. I checked the HUD Glasses out of curiosity. We were at 35%.
Fallen Star rattled even harder against his cage. Just like I felt death around Somnia, I felt my desire for power. It was raw. Primal. Bestial. It made me feel like all of my aversions to Fallen Star meant absolutely nothing. Like I’d been DENYING MYSELF THE POWER I WAS BORN TO TAKE. THIS WORLD BELONGED TO ME. I WAS NOT THE GOD OF MINASHIRE. I WAS THE GOD OF THIS WORLD. IT WAS MY DUTY TO STAND ATOP MY PEOPLE, AND YET I FOUND MYSELF AWED BY LIGHT SHOWS AND PARLOR TRICKS. HOW PATHETIC. HOW UTTERLY PATH–
Yugo knelt over me as the Minashire Monitor spat water on my face. I’d been on my back, and Yugo looked down at me with more intensity than I’d ever seen from him.
“Keep it together, Rui! We’ve gotta fight them, not each other.”
I’d been gasping for air. Somnia, still in her odd state, stood in the distance engaged in a tense stare-off with General Viard. Archie, Shuten Douji, and Ibaraki, however, each stared down at me like they’d seen a ghost.
“What happened?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. I’d gotten too comfortable with Fallen Star. He’d slipped his chains, and he’d nearly killed my friends. New rage built up inside of me, and it wasn’t at my lack of power.
“You started leaking aura that sapped a good chunk of our health away,” Yugo said. “Mina took care of that, though. If it makes you feel any better, you killed half of Flix’s guys. You didn’t level though, for some reason. Sorry, I’m not good with the whole good-news-bad-news thing. I’d rather give it to you straight.”
Yugo continued to try and calm me down, but I wasn’t listening to him.
Stay in line! You have one job: give me power. These guys are my friends! They’re off limits, do you understand me?!
Fallen Star roared with laughter. “WHY ARE YOU ANGRY WITH ME? THAT WASN’T MY DOING. THAT WAS YOURS.”
Yugo snapped in my face, likely understanding what I’d been doing. “You gonna be okay for this fight?”
I allowed Yugo to help me to my feet. “Yeah. I’ll… yeah. I will.”
“Good,” Somnia called. “Because I’m going to kill Viard and any of his men foolish enough to disobey me. You’d do well to keep yourself together, Rui Payne.”
I didn’t have enough energy to call her out for the way she spoke to me. “I know. I’ll be fine.”
Her strange state softened a little when she turned to me. She gave me a wholesome smile, though, given the air around her, it came off a touch creepy.
“Good,” Somnia said, turning back to Viard. “Shuten Douji, have your men interrogate Denk. If he reveals that this meeting was a setup, kill him.”
“But God Queen Somnia! I didn’t know! I–”
“As for you and your brother, I need you two to handle Flix. Kill him or convert him, but I want you to keep civilian casualties to a minimum. Moreover, I expect you two to convert any and all Wild Men who show a willingness to surrender following your defeat of Flix.”
“Okay!” Ibaraki shouted before Shuten Douji could answer. Somnia smiled at him, and the two took off.
“Yugo, Archie, I need you two to take care of the mute one, Clez. Same rules apply.”
“Rules?” Archie challenged, but Yugo was already playing along.
“Yes, sir, God Queen Somnia, sir!”
He picked up Archie by his back collar like a cat and took off for General Clez. Yugo grabbed the Wild Man General by the neck and disappeared into the forest with both Archie and General Clez in his clutches.
“Rui, please keep your bloodlust in order. You’re an adult, and I need you to act like one.”
“How ironic,” I managed to say.
Somnia actually laughed, though just like her smile it came off a touch ominous. Given how she looked up at General Viard on his terrace, though, I think that was on purpose.
“Like my mother always says, we’re ‘Works in Progress’. I didn’t mean that as a slight. You need to keep that in check just like I need to keep mine in check.” She pointed two serrated daggers that cried blood from their hilts at General Viard. “This’ll be like training for us.”