“Let me assure you we of the Arca Tribe believe the only death of worth is in glorious combat against the gods… Isn’t that right, men?!!!” The Captain roared as he held up a clenched fist. The Arca tribe were famous for being some of the most signally skilled warriors alive. It is said that they had yet to face a mortal and willing surrender. All the more important as Arca in tribal language meant warrior.
“”Yeah!!!”” a number of the crew cheered in response—several of which had very clearly moustaches and beards stuck to their faces. One Yuu suspected was a woman.
“So introductions. The rest of the lads don’t matter; you need only worry about my three officers who command the escort ships. This here is Roht, Ikol, and Ferry.” he explained, gesturing to the three people with bad disguises.
“Alex…” Yuu began gesturing for him to come closer. “Those are obviously-”
“Yeah, two of them only reversed their names… they are literally glowing,” Alex replied in a hissed whisper. Looking at the officers whose names were as poorly disguised as they were.
“You fight the Northern Pantheon much?” Alex asked to which the three officers looked finicky.
“We have a fun scrap every so often. They actually respond to our invitations. The downside is it is hard to kill an immortal divine being.”
“Don’ worry cap’n I’m sure if you used mi ’ammer you can give dat git Loki a good ole one-two,” Roht said, holding up a hammer that wasn’t crackling with lightning.
“Don’t listen to him, Captain… he is a brainless dolt… we should replace Thor’s breachers with itching powder solidified,” Ikol suggested.
“Iz dat why my underoos itch?!!!” Roht asked angrily.
“Had to test it,” Ikol replied.
“I hope we can one day fight the southern pantheon. If we could do that, I would follow whoever sorted it out,” the Captain declared.
“You serious about that?” Alex asked, a gleam in his drunken eyes.
“Yeah, but no idiot is daft enough to challenge the gods and survive,” the Captain replied.
“GOOD NEWS!!!!” Alex beamed as he took the Captain by the hands.
“You have found such idiots!!!”
“You will challenge the gods?”
“Challenge, insult, pick a fight, you name it, I will do it. My wife even… no, wait, that’s not happened yet… Regardless as your boys row us to the Grand Granary, we will prove our dedication to the cause. With a firm arm-grasped handshake that men of combat do, they set off rowing to the west, trying to overcome the headwind they were facing.
“Alex, you do know in our current bodies, we won’t be able to fight a god, right?” Yuu asked in a hushed whisper.
“No, but we can make it look like we are fighting… besides Zeus is a prick that blows his bolt so early he has to swan away,” Alex joked.
“So what’s the plan? Even with this booze, a lot of this time is still blurry,” Yuu asked as she looked at her friend.
“You made that experimental spear for Elissa, right?” Alex asked, glancing at the bundled pack that Yuu had kept close to her but hadn’t been mentioned yet.
“You want to use that?” Yuu asked incredulously. “You do know there's no guarantee it’ll work. Time is in flux, Alex; I remember living to three hundred one minute and then living to several thousand the next. We can only screw around only so much.”
“It’ll look cool.”
“Fine, make sure if you die, it is at the very least flashy.” Yuu begrudgingly said as she thrust the spear into Alex’s hands.
“Oh, it’ll be flashy,” Alex assured Yuu as he strode to the front of the ship.
“Gentlemen and gentlemen, I shall now demonstrate my willingness to fight the gods,” Alex declared. He had an audience of three as the rowers of the longboat were facing the other way. Silence descended upon the longboat, the only noise being the sound of the oars sweeping the water and the drums keeping their rhythm.
“Can I get a chant going need to be in the right mood,” Alex asked as he hopped from side to side.
“Men do the rowing chant,” the Captain ordered as the men began chanting with each row of their oar.
“Now what, Mr challenge the-” the Captain began with a smug look, only to have Alex interrupt him.
“OI ZEUS, YOU IMPOTENT OLD FART. HOW ABOUT YOU STOP HARRASSING INNOCENT PRINCESSES AND SHOW WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR PINKY-SIZED LIGHTNING BOLT!!!”
Alex’s shout to the heavens shocked everyone on the longboat and the surrounding longboats. The only ones not reacting were the rowers, who were so focused on their task and chanting they had blocked out the surrounding world. All at once the sky above them began to darken as storm clouds began taking shape above the small group of ships.
“Wow, he is an idiot. No god will show up if you insult them like that,” the Captain muttered as he looked at Alex.
“COME AT ME, YOU PRICK!!!” With this shout, Alex thrust the spear he was holding up above him.
All at once the sky lit up with a net of lightning as countless bolts fell from the sky towards Alex. But the second before they could touch him, the bolts all struck the spear. Witnessing this, everyone who could see him held their breath.
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Alex stood unmoving, bolts raining down onto his spear as electricity crackled around his body. From the other ships, Roht looked rather disappointed with the use of lightning. In comparison, Ikol looked terrified that Thor had discovered what he had done to his privy.
“Is he still alive?” the longboat’s drummer asked.
“No way anyone is alive after that look; he still has lightning crackling around his-”
The Captain was unable to finish his sentence as Alex suddenly lowered the spear and looked over his shoulder at the Captain with a smug grin.
“So that was the sky, daddy… who’s next? Ah, Poseidon!!!” Alex answered his own question.
“OI POSEIDON, YOU THINK YOU ARE ALL HOT SHIT? I BET I KILLED MORE OF YOUR KIDS THAN ANY OTHER GODS!!!” All at once, the ocean around the longboats began to shake violently as, in the distance, a wall of water began to rise.
“Hard starboard!!!” the Captain yelled.
“No straight ahead!!! Tonight we have victory or Valhalla!!!” Alex declared madness in his eyes as he focused on the wave rapidly approaching the longboats.
“Please stop him!!!” the Captain desperately asked Yuu, who was casually thumbing through a magazine she had picked up in the prison's visitor lounge.
“Huh? Oh… Alex, be sure to keep them sailing straight,” Yuu said briefly, looking up at Alex.
“You heard the lady take the wave head-on; go as close to single file as you can,” Alex shouted as he climbed up to the figurehead of the longboat.
“What is he doing?” the Captain asked.
“He is proving we can challenge gods,” Yuu casually replied as she reached the horoscopes section.
“This is death by god, not fighting them!!!” the Captain shouted.
“A proper good scrap is the way to go!!!”
“Then do as he says, and you can have your scrap,” Yuu casually replied as she read her horoscope. Libra: Stormy waters are ahead, but you will meet a new ally for your life while Jupiter and Neptune rise against you.
“Huh, go figure,” Yuu muttered, admiring the accuracy of the horoscope.
The Captain resolved to follow Alex’s directions and signalled the following longboats to get as close as possible. They had done so just in time to welcome the mountainous wall of water approaching them.
“Ok, here we go,” Alex said with a grin, and a light shone from his hand gripping the shaft of the spear. Leaning back, he swung forwards and launched the spear towards the wave.
“That was your-!!” the Captain shouted before he saw what Alex had done.
The spear flung fast and accurate, powered by numerous acceleration spells Alex had been applying to it while he held it. What the crew facing the wave saw, though, was the spear begging to shine and then flash.
The flash was a perfect orb, and all the water within this orb vanished in an instant. The spear continued on its trajectory just in front of the longboats eliminating the water and somehow creating a tunnel through the wave—a tunnel through which their little fleet was now rowing.
“How is he doing this?!” the Captain shouted in a panic.
“He challenges gods to breakfast; you think a fight will scare him?” Yuu replied, glancing at her friend, who was doing a picture-perfect supervillain cackle.
Glancing beyond her friend, she could see the spear she had designed and built as a reunion gift for Elissa. It had a core of many lightning crystals. The base connected to a wire that could be kept a safe distance from the wielder, and if grasped by this end, the spear could release stored up energy in high heat bursts.
She knew it needed to be tested, but purposely pissing off a pair of gods to do it was a bit much, even by Alex’s standards. She couldn’t help but let out a resigned sigh. This was exactly why she was friends with him. He was mad enough actually to go out and test her craziest creations.
The boy who didn’t flinch a millimetre when she had shot a crossbow bolt at his head had consistently proven he would dive head-first into anything without hesitation. She supposed that was why she knew he would always be her friend, as she was the same way.
“So, which is the next of the southern pantheon gods?” Alex asked, oblivious to his hair that was now out in every direction and occasionally sparking.
“Enough. You have proven your mettle; we will follow you from now on, sir,” the Captain said as he knelt before Alex.
“Follow me and Yuu and my Missus, who we will meet when we arrive at the Great Granary,” Alex corrected.
“We shall declare our loyalty when we see them put on as great a display of divine defiance as you have,” the Captain replied.
“Very well, I’m sure my missus will prove her divinance soon enough. My name is Alexander Guntherian,” Alex said, offering his arm. The Captain grasped it in his own.
“I am Arcadious Dracoss,” the Captain replied.
“If I remember my Arca right, that means… Warrior King of the Dragon Lords?” Alex asked to which Arcadious nodded.
“Indeed, sir, my parents had high hopes for me.”
“Well, we shall have fun proving their hopes well founded,” Alex replied, wrapping an arm around Arcadious’ shoulder.
—-------------------------------
October 16th, Year 021 Angels Descent
They had spent the better part of two and half days at sea and had just arrived in the little cove to the Grand Granary. The capital of Gluttony’s territory. Standing proud in the centre of the city was the granary itself.
The place worked triple duty as an impenetrable fortress, palace for Gluttony and the primary food storage for the region. They followed an old standard rule with centralised control over the fertile planes of Gluttony’s domain that was aptly named the Golden Fields.
The rule they followed was the government would lease out grains for planting to each region. The region then would plant these and grow a crop. They must then return the same amount that had been leased with a small percentage of profit. The rest was for the domain to do with as they, please.
This is, in part, why the region had always been so highly skilled at farming. Their production directly affected their own profit margins. Even independent farmers could make a decent living off of a bumper crop. While also utilising the government lease grain in times of little.
This strict control had even led to many crops becoming selectively bred to enable the maximum grain per stalk growth. Which in turn enabled the government to grow its stores even more and spread these seeds to more regions.
With added thanks to the volcanic history of the Dark Continent, the land was almost eternally fertile. That is till the most recent ruler of the Gluttony Domain. Lady D’Pompador of the famed D’Pompador clan, a clan that had served as Gluttony countless times and was approaching a similar status as the Greybacks of the Pride Lands.
Pulling into the dock, the little fleet of longboats arrived to see a woman in an extravagant dress there to welcome them.
“Sir, who is she?” Arcadious asked.
“She is Lady Gluttony and the reason we are here,” Alex replied.
“So you are here to meet with a Sinful Lord, sir?”
“Oh no… I am here to become one,” Alex casually replied as he stepped across the gangplank and greeted the lady with a bow.