Chapter 2:

Lemons

“ From the day we arrive on the planet,

And blinking, step into the sun,

There's more to see than can ever be seen,

More to do than can ever be done.”

Circle of Life – Lion King

– ▲▲▲▲▲ –

The monster charged again and Athena threw herself to the ground, unfazed by the wind that gushed above her. A quick roll and she was back up on her feet. Reaffirming her grip on her [Cursed Gorgon Shield], she immediately gave chase. In her mind, the countdown continued.

… five … four …

The creature’s trail was obvious, straight and marked by huge chunks of wood blasted off nearby trees. Though “huge” was relatively speaking. To the giants of [Nowhere], those wounds barely scratched the outer layer of their bark. Still, that didn’t make them less impressive.

… three … two …

Suddenly, a grotesque and bulky shell, about three cubic metres in size, appeared before the running Shieldbearer. It was hovering about thirty centimetres above the mossy ground and covered in a dark green aura. The [Hoverturtle of Spanoosh] had come to a halt, its head and limbs tucked safely inside its keratin armour.

… one. “[Shield Bash]!”

Athena lunged forward.

A fraction of a second before she made contact, at the moment the countdown would have hit zero, the green aura suddenly flickered and a shadow jolted out of the head hole of the monster. Then the [Gorgon Shield] smashed into its side in a slightly upward motion.

[Shield Bash] was one of the rare “offensive” skills available to tanks. Due to its low damage output and its consensual uselessness for primarily defensive players, the skill was rather unpopular. For Athena, however, who based her playstyle on timing and precise counteroffensives, the slight knockback that came with the attack was invaluable, creating openings and gaining her precious milliseconds…

…at first.

Because, again, the knockback was “slight” relatively to the proficiency of the skill…

…which Athena had maxed.

*BAM*

Accompanied by a shockwave, the demon turtle was bashed away, flew five metres, flipped over and crashed into a protruding root. Merciless, the Shieldbearer dashed after her prey before it even touched ground. She jumped over the overturned shell, and swiftly rammed her shield downward with all the inertia of her heavy muscular body, guillotining the monster in a geyser of greyish blood.

Critical hit!

“Ha… ha… ha…”

Athena slowly stepped down from the inert creature, panting. The cool clearheaded battle rush was rapidly receding and the uncomfortable warmth of her usual underlying anger was coming back once more. Annoyed, she spat on the ground and kicked the bleeding corpse.

“Ha… ha… Damn Testudines. Ha… Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea for the fastest monster here to be a freaking turtle?! Ha… Ha… If this is supposed to be funny… Ha… I guess that proves again Mom is amazing to work with those guys. Ha… ha… I’m still no good.”

As a Shieldbearer, she was absurdly durable, but she was also slow and her actual damage was ridiculously weak compared to her high Strength.

She had worked hard to find ways around the shortcomings of her class, making clever use of her analytic mind and going for critical hits. She was now able to mostly stand for herself, unlike so many tanks out there who were utterly useless without a damage dealer. Yet, she had to admit, her method was still too inefficient to allow her to go solo.

In the first place, tanks were optimized for party play. To create her ideal invulnerable alter ego, she had made choices and was now forced to compromise to follow through with those choices, even if that meant acknowledging how far she was from her ideal. She was weak, she knew it, and it was especially obvious when outnumbered or pinned against an opponent that was both fast and resistant, like the [Hoverturtle of Spanoosh].

“Another … stupid name.” Her breathing was gradually coming back. “It’s … becoming a trend. Ever since Bluerose …. it’s all [Dreadful Cockatoo], [Constipated Golem] and [Sgululurg]... Whatever that thing was. Seriously. The fuck is wrong with this place?!”

Swallowing a frustrated roar, she ragingly clicked her tongue, then let out a deep sigh, a sense of dread building up in her chest.

“Haaaaa…” I blame the place, but there’s something off about Victoria. She didn’t even seemed to find it odd. Seriously, she’s far too used to this. Why do I get a bad feeling about the future?

Last of a long series of oddities with strange names and mismatched abilities, the [Hovertutle] had flown in short bursts, each nine seconds long, at extremely high speed. Then it would stop for one second, out of which it used less than a tenth to look around and chose the direction for its next charge. Plus, its magic barrier had made it virtually invulnerable.

A real nightmare for a lone tank.

The only “weak point” of the [Hoverturtle] was that it needed to take down its defensive aura to poke its ugly head out. Which meant a window of zero point one second each ten seconds, all the while avoiding the deadly bolts of a creature that wasn’t impaired by the impractical terrain.

Ridiculous.

Athena put the [Gorgon Shield] back in her inventory and grabbed the meat-loaded shell by its edges.

“Let’s hope this thing can be cooked! Oargh!”

With a loud groan of effort, she raised her dead quarry from the ground and began her slow jog back to the encampment, following the marks she had left on the outward trip.

Since the developers of the game had deemed unnecessary to provide adventurers with a mini-map – or any kind of map in the interface, really – she had to be careful not to get lost. As long as she hunted in the vicinity of the camping ground, she could sprint back to safety if things went south, but getting lost in the [Valley of Nowhere] was something of a death sentence for anyone lower than level one hundred and seventy – based on her own estimations, because Victoria’s had proven to be… of debatable worth.

– *** –

After about seven minutes of steadily depleting her stamina bar, an enormous deformed mass became visible in-between the trees, surrounded by a moving cloud of exploding rainbow bubbles.

The darkness of the woods somewhat dimmed the flashiness of its skin, nauseating mix of pink, azure and light-green, but that only made the glowing heart-shaped marks that covered its body all the more obvious. Thankfully, its more absurd features were difficult to discern in the obscurity, but they were still intermittently revealed by the bursts of purple fire spat out by the gaping shredded hole that served as mouth to the creature.

Oh great… My headache is back.

Despite silently cursing, Athena didn’t slow down and continued in the direction of the abomination.

I still have no idea how Victoria tamed that… thing. The goblins, I guess they can be reasoned with. But this? Even she doesn’t seem to know. I’m sure miss Fangy has no idea how hold to it in check. No, that’s wrong. She probably doesn’t care about keeping it in check at all, which is fucked up! For fuck’s sake! If it snaps, even me would be trashed without a chance to fight back.

The Shieldbearer didn’t like this. At all.

She wasn’t a total control freak, but she hated situations purely based on luck. She had enough of being helpless in real life. Untold Tales’ Athena was supposed to be an unbreakable force of nature, one strong enough to command her own fate. Not that she was perfect, but she certainly was not someone who should have to be at the mercy of something like luck, worrying every instant about a vile broken chimera that may or may not lose it any time soon.

That was also the reason why she hated her new subclass so much.

If she had been honest with herself, she’d have to admit the Progenitor’s Soulbound subclass had a good synergy with the Shieldbearer. A boost in magical defence, heightened resistance to manipulation, faster HP-regeneration… Those were quite helpful. And she didn’t spat on the additional night vision either.

However, by its very nature, the Soulbound was chained to the Progenitor. There weren’t any real shackles per se – Victoria could neither control nor restrict her –, but most of her new skills only displayed their full potential when fighting for, or by, her “master”.

“…master,” she hatefully spat the word.

She hated that.

Hated to be restrained.

Hated that there were aspects of her power, her own power, that she could never have complete control of. It didn’t matter how much she liked Victoria’s company, or Victoria herself. The simple thought she had to be with the Dhampir Princess – not by choice, but by necessity – was enough to spoil her mood.

Athena wasn’t such a bitch that she’d consciously vent her anger on her travel mate, but she knew well enough that self-control wasn’t her strong point. Victoria being partially the source of her problem didn’t help either. Though, intellectually, Athena knew blaming everything on the white-haired girl was unfair, and she felt guilty about her resentment. And that guilt fuelled her self-loathing further, putting her in an even sorer mood.

In this situation, it was no wonder that the presence of an ugly, potentially berserk, giant monster certainly didn’t do much to help dissipate her irritation.

But then, it wasn’t like she had much choice but to tolerate the thing – yet another fact that pissed her off.

She couldn’t cross [Nowhere] by herself, if only because she had no idea where the exit was. Victoria, despite being a powerful mage with absurd stats for her level, basically only had access to First Tier spells right now, like a godly spearman armed with an unlimited amount of toothpicks. And the goblins were basically useless in a fight, whatever the little green “warriors” might have had to retort on that last point.

For all the discomfort the giant disgusting thing caused her, it did keep everything else at bay. Even getting the goblins to come close by had needed some serious “convincing” – meaning some eye-to-eye discussions with the Lady Progenitor.

Besides, Athena had other matters to worry about… namely Victoria… again.

If there was one thing the confused Shieldbearer had learned about her unpredictable companion, it was that the dhampir was fearless… in a very dangerous and stupid kind of way.

Athena herself hated to feel fear, but still understood a small amount of it was necessary for survival purposes. Similarly to how pain was necessary to notice harm to one’s body, fear warned against danger. However, Victoria… lacked even the most basic of survival instincts. Or at least she sure acted that way.

The cheerful fragile beauty would use the back of the gargantuan abomination as a slide, completely oblivious to the nitro-glycerine bubbles storming around her. She’d spare with the goblins despite being so weak that cheap wooden swords left durable bruises on her body. She ate monster meat without a care in the world, despite the notorious potential toxicity of it.

Oh… and her arm was still broken.

Though I’m a bit at fault there, the tall woman thought as her face became slightly hotter.

When confronted with such an absolute lack of self-awareness, Athena couldn’t help but stop being concerned about herself, and worry about the childish Princess instead. But even that worry was often swept away in Victoria’s pace, whose personality could suddenly switch from a defenceless airhead to a teasing know-it-all in a matter of heartbeats, killing her designated bodyguard’s protective overdrive in the crib and leaving Athena in an irritated emotional tiredness.

Seriously, that crazy bitch.

Simultaneously sighing and faintly smirking, the Shieldbearer strengthened her grip on the dead headless giant turtle and sped up towards the hideous patchworky insult to the most basic laws of biology.

– *** –

*woosh*

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“Oooowowow… damn.”

As her consciousness settled back in her sleeping virtual body, Victoria felt the numb pain in her left leg brutally shift to a less numb pain in her left arm… plus a few additional bruises she had no idea where they came from.

“Why me? Have I done something horrible in my past life? I must have been a killer or something.”

Then the smell hit her. It was like the stench of a dirty stable in which someone had forgotten a barrowful of festering cheese on a sunny day.

No… never mind… that’s just goblins.

“Make that a serial killer… though I’m pretty sure eating cornflakes this morning had nothing to do with anything.”

Eyes still closed, she could feel small warm and smelly bodies pressed against her. Greenies liked to huddle when they slept, and, apparently, Ru and Mia’s youngest offspring had taken a liking to her.

She didn’t mind the skinship though, even if the goblins weren’t exactly the smoothest beings around. She herself was a very cuddly person… when she wasn’t being an antisocial shut-in. She’d have slept with McLeon, if the big bastard didn’t spent every single night terrorising the local rodent population and fighting crime as Cat… Catman… Catcat?

Whatever.

But still, the smell was difficult to get used to.

Well, enough of that. “Hopty dopty! Rise and shine undead beauty.”

She opened her eyes, only to immediately fight the dizziness that assaulted her. Every corner of her vison was cramped with bars, and numbers, and symbols, and… stuff she barely had any idea of the meaning. The worst part of the display was that it remained fixed when she moved her head, disagreeing with the changing background.

The experience was pretty much like motion sickness.

Why did I agree to this again?

All throughout his glorious UT gaming life, Elric had kept the visual interface at its bare minimum. Just the satiety bar in fact, and only after dying twice from hunger after forgetting to eat.

Important things like mana depletion, low health points, or agonising stamina were accompanied by very distinct physical discomfort, so he had never judged that displaying them in such an in-your-face kind of way held any purpose whatsoever. As for less crucial information… well… they were less crucial, so why bother?

However, the mighty and merciless goddess of numbers and deathly accuracy, namely Athena Pallas the Shieldbearer, had insisted again and again that this pointless flood of visual data was capital to successful teamwork and timely cooperation.

…I think. Something around those lines.

Victoria had begged to disagree, but the opposition had proved unrelenting, spouting an impressive litany of – no doubt compelling and well thought-out – arguments… that the princess hadn’t understood at all.

Although, truth be told, with a new body and completely different parameters, the instincts she had in the past developed as Elric would probably prove more of a hindrance than anything, so complementing the unlearning of her habits with visual support didn’t sound like a bad idea at the time.

Unaware of the gender-bent princess inner reasons, Athena must have thought that her last argument – a slowly raising fist – was what had ended up convincing Victoria.

Though I can’t deny this fist looked very compelling… from an argumentative standpoint.

Interestingly enough, the short-tempered Shieldbearer had seemed a bit sad that violence was the only part of her speech that didn’t went ununderstood.

Well, she is a very intellectual woman… in-between punches.

Reasons aside, Victoria was still struggling to adapt to the aggressive invasion of her field of vision.

*ting*

With the customary bell sound, a small blinking icon suddenly appeared in the upper-second-row-left-left-right-something area of the interface.

“Mmmh? What the… odd.”

The sight was odd for two reason.

Firstly, the little envelope-thingy indicated a private message. However, it was impossible to receive PMs outside of safe zones, and Victoria was pretty sure that laying against the ant-like leg of a mountain-sized boss surrounded by a small tribe of sleeping goblins didn’t nearly qualify as a “safe” zone.

Secondly, the small pictogram was golden instead of the usual blue – she wasn’t completely clueless about the specificities of the interface. Gold was the colour for communications from Whatever, yet the icon lacked the initials “SA” indicating a dreadful fanfare-y System Announcement.

I’ve seen that somewhere…

Intrigued, Victoria racked her brains for a precedent.

It took her some time but, with an epiphany-like imaginary sound, she finally remembered this one time when Elric had tried to force his way into a player-restricted area and a GM had kindly sent him a message mentioning that it was “impossible to get in, so please stop trying to blow up the castle. It won’t work.”

…or something. Still persuaded it would have succeeded. If only I hadn’t run out of [Dragon Breath Powder].

“Anyway… GM, uh? What have I done this time?”

I mean, besides breaking the no sex-change rule and loopholing a Grand Curse? Hey! It wasn’t even my fault. I PLEAD NOT GUILTY!! … Well... maybe.

She shrugged and mentally clicked the icon.

From: Siri

To: Victoria Sangleu

Yo! Long-time no see. Bet’ya don’t even remember my name. Ya said you weren’t good with those. Not that it really matter anyway.

So, ya see… There’s this asshole vampire noob named Rumex Sanguiwhatever. He really pissed me off, so could you destroy him a couple times? Blow up his empty numbskull and desecrate his remains? Slit his throat and throw his fucking corpse to the pigs? Stake him in the balls? That kind of colourful things.

Pretty please? ♥

I’d be super grateful. Should be easy, given you’re the Progenitor and shit.

Can’t give you no reward though. Sorry ‘bout that. My hands are a bit tied up… don’t even have hands actually, that’s kinda sad… but you get the idea.

Thank you in advance,

Siri.

PS: Whahahaha… Turned into a girl?! I mean, WTF? How the hell did that happen. I only have access to rough player data, but I was sooooo shocked! XD

“…”

That… isn’t a Game Master… I hope.

With a deadpan face, Victoria stared at the message. She blinked a couple times, then mentally selected the [Reply] button.

From: Victoria Sangbleu

To: Siri

…sure.

And she hit [Send].

Don’t know who that is, but… a mission by someone of dubious identity with no specific reward? When did that ever backfired? Ha… ha… ha… Bah. Sounds fun.

“Now…”

She glanced at the surrounding goblins, especially the two clutching to her good arm and right leg, as well as the humongous creature she was leaning against. She also noticed the absence of her favourite copper-headed body-pillow.

“She’s already gone hunting? Ha, not good, I probably should try to get u-”

*ting*

From: Siri

To: Victoria Sangbleu

Waaaaaaah!!!! It worked! I wasn’t even sure I could PM players! So cool! I was soooooo bored! Ah! But I shouldn’t abuse it. Don’t know if it’s a bug, but I wouldn’t want to be reset wouldn’t I? HAHAHAHAHA!! FREEEEEE!!! …kinda. Geez.

Well, I don’t have many people I’d want to talk to anyway, so… can we become mail buddies?

“…”

With a deadpan face, Victoria stared at the message, again. She blinked about four times, then mentally selected the [Reply] button.

From: Victoria Sangbleu

To: Siri

…sure?

And she hit [Send], then waited.

“…”

*ting*

From: Siri

To: Victoria Sangbleu

Super big thanks! I’ll…

Ah, there’s another sucker coming. Must get back to work. See ya! Bye.

With a deadpan face, Victoria stared at the message...

“…”

cHaOS: Got a new friend?

“…a genocide. I must have caused a genocide. I must repent or else I…”

Mumbling in self-pity, and vaguely stunned, Victoria slowly stood up. The two goblings clutching to her slid to the ground without much difficulties and she proceeded to walk out of the pile of bodies, moving carefully as not to step on any young greeny.

As soon as she took a step forward though, a number in the bottom left corner of her vision reacted to her change in horizontal velocity. She got distracted, tripped on something – most likely someone – and facegrounded, mercifully on a strip of thick moss.

Still, moss or not, it hurt.

Why me?

“… I think Life hates me.”

Big C: Between you and me: she does.

“Serious… Damn. What have I ever done to her?”

Chaos: Mmmmh… Let me think. You die too often. I think you hold the record by the way…

“Why does she care?”

Chaos: Dunno. Maybe she takes it as a personal insult? Also, you formed the current head of the largest assassination guild in Pandore.

“Like hell this is my fault! I’m not Fatherless Bird’s guardian or anything.”

Chaos: Then… Oh… and you’re a half-undead overlord now.

“…”

Chaos: So… yeah. Life Herself officially hates you.

“…Well, fuck you, Life!”

Chaos: Great! That’s the spirit! No need to fear the wrath of one of the cardinal forces of the universe! Keep insulting her! I’m sure everything will work out just fine!

“Fuck you too Chaos.”

Chaos: You’re welcome.

– ***** –

----------------------------------------

And here’s another lovely chapter with, as you see, a tremendous amount of plot.

Next chapter, our duo should finally get out of Nowhere… whatever that means.

So, thank you for reading, and see you next chapter.