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Wives, Snake

The air was cool when I opened my eyes. For a moment I expected to find Dania and Lia next to me as I sat up. But no they weren’t. All that had happened to me last night came flying to my mind. The remains of the fire made by the Wahaki men were still here. I quickly checked my stats.

General Information

Name: Rabbi

Race: Human

Sex: Male

Level: Zero

Strength: 5

Health: 50

Spells: Nil

Weapons: Nil

My heart sank like the last time it had when I had come to know about the abduction of Rozy. All the time I had spent levelling up, acquiring new spells and skills had entirely gone to waste. Tears came to my eyes and I gritted my teeth. It felt so unfair. After all the hard work, someone just comes to you with some magic stone and then takes away everything.

I lay back down on the ground unable to face the truth of my situation. That I was in level zero. I closed my eyes and put my hands over my face, wishing everything was just a dream, a very bad dream and when I opened my eyes again everything would be all right. Perhaps I would find myself back in the castle and my three women, including Rozy would be with me.

For a while I stayed so, my hands pressing hard against my face, and then all of a sudden I sat up bold upright.

Dani and Lia. Were they okay? Or had the Wahaki men and their monkeys gone after them after they had dealt with me?

I stood up. My body was in aches, but that was the least of my concerns. I felt around my waist for my sword almost instinctively, but it wasn’t there. I had left it in the clearing last night when I had gone to piss.

“Dani! Lia!” I shouted, hoping against hope that they would somehow hear my voice. How far had the monkeys brought me from them? Certainly it couldn’t have been a great distance, though I was sure at the same time that it would be a considerable distance.

I took note of the place I was in and I tried hard to remember the way through which the monkeys had brought me. But I just couldn’t. I felt so helpless. I leaned against a tree to support myself. There was still the sinking feeling in my heart and it was not helping at all to deal with the situation. I did not wanted to live anymore, just wanted to die and let everything fix itself.

Come on Rabbi, a voice inside me said, you cannot give up so easily! You are a king!

But I wasn’t a king in the barbaric lands, a weaker voice protested. I am just a helpless individual at level zero. There is nothing I can do, all is lost.

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Tears began to worm down my cheeks from my eyes. It was the first time that I was actually crying in a long, long while. Even when Rozy had been abducted I had not shed a tear. I had just vowed that I would rescue her and kill the sorcerer and put his head on a pike for everyone to see. But at that time I had not been at level zero. I still had my skills and spells. Now all hope was lost, even the thought of fighting back was pointless.

“It’s the little things that you don’t give much thought to that you must be careful about,” my father had said, “You deal well with the big things. You can rule the kingdom with wisdom. But if you ignore the little things they will bite you when you list expect them to and that will be your downfall.”

Father had been so right! Yet, I had not taken his advice to heart. Perhaps if I had not left Dani and Lia just to empty my bladder, perhaps all this would not have happened. Perhaps the three of us could have fought off the monkeys. Dani was good with arrows and though her skill had degraded significantly after coming to the barbaric lands, but she could still hit a monkey between the eyes at close range. And Lia could heal. If the monkey had shot me with their dart, perhaps she could have used her powers to heal me?

For a while I sat at the bottom of the tree in complete silence, the tears continuing to pour down my face. I just kept repeating the events from yesterday night over and over and over again in my mind, all the while blaming nobody but myself for everything that had happened.

And then, all of a sudden a distant shout reached my ears, which pulled me out of my brooding at once.

“Rabbi!” It just had to be Dia.

And another.

“Rabbit!” It had to be Lani.

And they kept shouting, but all the while their voices became smaller and smaller as though they were moving in a direction away from me. I wiped my eyes. My heart beat rose as I realised that I had received one last chance at life by some fluke of luck. But if I did not act, then it would be taken away from me.

But strangely I did not want to act.

If I took an action and went after Lani and Dia, then I would have to keep taking action till I rescued Rozy and killed the sorcerer as I had vowed. And it would not end at that. I would have to return to my kingdom and take the responsibilities of the kingdom again, which I had left to the care of my younger brother.

I realised giving up was far easier than actually pursuing my cause. It was far easier to sit at the base of the tree and weep and keep repeating things in my head and feel miserable then to go searching for Lani and Dia—

Suddenly, I slapped my face, putting an abrupt stop to the particular line of thought I had been going along. How could I think of such weakness? I slapped my face again and I did it hard enough to taste blood in the inside of my mouth. I wiped my face and stood up. I could barely hear the voices of Lani and Dia now, but they were still there.

I began to follow their voices. I had to strain my ears real hard and wished if only I had taken action immediately upon hearing their voices. Soon, I had broken into a run.

“Lani! Dia!” I yelled. “Can you hear me?”

But there was no response from them. I could hear their voices no more. I came to a halt and closed my eyes. I let all the sounds of the forest come to me. Birds were chirping and small animals were eating and there was a light breeze rustling the leaves… and there were the voices of Dani and Lia shouting my name. Except they were coming from a completely different direction than what I had thought them to be coming from earlier.

I started moving towards the sound of their voices. I kept my eyes closed, as I found it easier to keep on the correct tract that way. Of course, there were many times when I ran against trees or face extremely thick bushes and had to make my way around them.

Slowly, the sound of their voices began to get louder, such that I knew that they could be no more than a hundred metres away from me.

“Dani, Lia!” I shouted.

Dani and Lia went silent suddenly.

“Did you hear that?” I heard the faint voice of Dani say to Lia.

“I am here!” I cried.

“We are coming for you!” Dani and Lia said together.

It was only now that I opened my eyes. I could still not see Dani and Lia, but I could hear some sounds ahead and knew they were approaching me.

“I am here!” I said as I myself moved towards them.

“We can see you, Rabbit,” Dani said. I parted a branch of a tree and then even I could see Dani and Lia. A wave of great relief hit me. Perhaps making the effort to come had been worth it, after all. Seeing Dani and Lia was totally worth kicking out the feelings of helplessness from my mind.

Dani and Lia smiled at me and they had tears in their eyes. But suddenly Dani gasped.

“What?” I said, for she looked quite pale.

“Do not move, Rabbi, whatever you do, do not move,” Dani said with a note of great warning. I couldn’t understand her and was about to take a step forward when I realised why she had gone so pale. There was a snake wrapped around a branch of a tree just inches away from my left arm. My body went cold as I realised the danger I was in. I recognised the snake well from its green body and red eyes. My advisors had asked me to be careful about this particular snake. It was known to possess a very aggressive nature and its venom could kill a person in the span of minutes.

The snake hissed, and it looked pissed off at me at daring to come so close to where it was. I took a step back, not wanting to piss off the snake more. It was a mistake. The movement triggered the snake and even as I watched the snake’s head shot towards me, its mouth wide and the fangs dug into my chest just over my heart.