Chapter 3: An Uprincely Welcome (editted)

According to the lore of Reign of Chaos, the tomb of the dark god Naharis located in the depth of the Mangora forest in the eastern frontier of the kingdom of Zard. It was one of the many surviving ancient structures belonged to the titan, an extinct race and ancient civilization. In the game Reign of Chaos, it served many purposes, a landmark, a place to hide thousands of troops and a place to perform a sacrificial ritual to summon one of the many demon lords of the underworld. However, what Fearless did not know from the lore of Reign of Chaos, This could be used as a motel, perhaps?  He asked himself inwardly. Fearless decided to spend the night in this eerie place with no other option available to him.

Fearless was deep in his world of thought, clutching his head with one hand while playing with his magic coin and cards in the other. It was a habit of Fearless, one that accidentally became an iconic image of his among his fan base. He was called the Magician because he could not help but fidget with his magic coins and cards every time he needed to work out a strategy with his team in between matches. He quickly became anguished, realizing that no matter how much he thought, it would change nothing, Fearless stomped the ground with the sole of his shoes, spouting all kind of profanities in all sort of languages. Then came the state of denial, this could not be real, he told himself, pinching his cheek really hard, yup, it’s real.

But surely, this must be an elaborate prank, if I search hard enough, I might see a hidden camera, Fearless began to laugh with confident as he searched, yup, nothing, this was no prank. Finally, he sighed woefully in resignation, sitting down on the grassy stone deck and watched the copper colored sky turned darker and darker. The golden Rolex on his left wrist told him that he has spent five hours on that stone deck, doing nothing meaningful. As Fearless was exploring the four stage of enlightening in Buddhism, the world did not stop and wait for him. The sun glowed red like a giant egg yolk as it sank into the sea of trees. Twilight came and robbed the world of its colors until the world in Fearless’ eyes looked like an old pencil sketched painting of black and white.

Fearless told himself that he had no choice but to stay in the sinister tomb for the night, at least until he found a clue to improve his situation.

Fearless picked a less windy room near the tomb entrance to stay for the night. He plucked off a burning torch hanging on a corridor wall instead of using his phone as a light source. He did not know how his phone could be useful in the world of Reign of Chaos but just by having it in his hands gave him some measure of peace. He switched it to battery saving mode and left it in his pocket.

The room Fearless chose to stay the night was small and almost claustrophobic. There was no hint of any furniture was ever being placed inside the room. He could not tell the purpose of the room from its design. Had Fearless seen this room through his PC screen, he would have written a lengthy complaint letter to the game developers for being lazy with their design.

While dusting off the cobwebbed wall to prepare his bedding, Fearless accidentally discovered a carved picture on the wall depicted the dark god Naharis planting the World Tree to save the titans from the Great Flood.

It was that moment, Fearless realized that he should not sit down in this room and being contented with his situation. I need clues, that should be his number one priority for the moment. While he was not a person of action like Alice or even FY, Fearless took pride in being a stupidly adapting person. Of course, after all of those experiences when he woke up only to discover himself in a strange places and bizarre situations from time to time, he learned a few lessons.

Staying in this one room would not provide him the clue he needed. Thus, Fearless tried to navigate his way back to that room with the dark good Naharis’ altar, the place where he first woke up in this world. May be if he was lucky, he would find a way to return to Earth immediately, Yeah right, that’s not how that kind of ‘transfer to another world’ fiction works, Fearless lamented.

Fearless got lost more than ten times within the maze as soon as he began his exploration. As he navigated through the tomb, he discovered more pictures depicting stories about the dark god Naharis on the walls. What he learned through the picture was nothing new. He had known the lore of Reign of Chaos like the back of his hands, as any devoted fans of game should.

The dark god Naharis in those pictures was depicted as a kind and benevolent god to the titans and a cruel and merciless god to their enemies. Naharis would appear and give divine providence to the titans in catastrophic events or rained down divine wrath on their enemies. That knowledge was nothing new to Fearless.

Fearless was not aware of the layout inside of the tomb of the dark god. In the game, he only need to order his troops to enter it and hide with a single click of a mouse button. There was no option for the players to go inside and explore the layout of the tomb. It took Fearless about half an hour before he finally returned to that corpse-littered room. Fearless felt like throwing up again. He gingerly walked across the room, trying not to stumble on anything this time while chanting Buddhism mantra for salvation in his mouth for the whole time, not for himself but for all the morons who died of unknown causes, and I am not even a Buddhist devotee, Fearless gritted his teeth and navigated through the room.

Fearless was back to where he came from, the altar of the dark god, Yup, it was still the same. That old geezer was as dead as ever and that sinister looking statue of the dark god Naharis still look as intimidating as ever. Fearless began to walk around the room, hoping for something to appear. Yup, no clue.

A silver glint blinded him for a moment while Fearless examined the altar, making him squinted his eyes out of reflex. There was something metallic hidden underneath a stone panel next to the mouldy altar which irked Fearless’ curiosity. He immediately decided to investigate the object. He walked toward it, torch leading. Something exploded, a white glimmer ripped through the inky darkness momentarily like a lightning bolt and projected a booming sound on the wall behind Fearless.

Fearless was frozen in place. He did not react, heck no, he could not react to that; maybe he could if he was Merleon… but he was just Fearless, himself. Fearless held his breath. His body was spiked with adrenaline. His heart felt like it was beating the war drums, What the fuck was the that? Whatever that thing was, it missed Fearless head by a few centimeters. Fearless gingerly turned around and trained his eyes on the object imbedded firmly on the wall.

A metallic object stuck out of the wall. With a closer observation, the object looked like a handle of a blade.

“This could not be the real thing, could it?” Fearless wondered and started pulling the blade out of the stony wall. It was harder than he initially thought. Fearless grabbed the hilt of the blade and cranked the it up and down. It stuck, still. He planted one foot on the wall and used his entire body strength to give it a good yank. The thing came out, a blade just like Fearless’ suspicion.

A blade, however, its blade was too short to be a sword and too long for a knife, about twenty centimeter in length. The weapon had a shape that resembled a lengthened and stretched arrowhead. This strange looking blade had no guard, just a short one-handed grip and a sharpened pommel. The metal that composed of this strange looking blade formed wave pattern within itself, which reminded Fearless of a Damascus sword that he once saw. A name suddenly flashed inside Fearless’ head, Enfermé the sealing sword.

It really was Enfermé or at least an extremely lookalike replica version of it but Fearless leaned on the former. The sword was incredibly sharp and sturdy. It managed to pierce through stone like a blob of frozen lard without being damaged. It was the real thing, the sword of seal Enfermé, Fearless waved the blade around as anyone would have. It was then Fearless became seriously confused. Why is Enfermé in this place? Enfermé had no business in the tomb of the dark god Naharis. It should be enshrined in the crystal vault of the scared temple Hemyscria of the elves as a divine relic.

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“Why are you here?” Fearless asked while admiring the sword. Of course, Enfermé being a sword, it could not give him any reply, Fearless didn’t even expect the sword to answer him. He merely vocalized his thought. It was something like a bad habit that he developed over the years.

A sound came to Fearless’ sharp ears. While Enfermé has made no attempt to reply to Fearless’ question. The unknown lying geezer on the ground did. Fearless was startled by the sudden noise, he immediately turned at the old geezer.

The old geezer as if trying to tell Fearless something, made the same noise again.

“You are alive, old man,” Fearless was so surprise that he just tossed Enfermé aside. The sword clanked off the floor disapprovingly.

The old geezer made the same noise twice again as if affirming. It was that very moment, Fearless felt that there was hope for humanity as a whole. He felt like he was Albert Einstein when he first discovered E = mc2 from his theory of relativity. He felt like he was Sima Yi when he learned that Zhuge Liang has finally passed away. He felt like he was the incredibly homesick Odysseus who managed to return home after so many years. He has never been happier to listen to the farting sound of a person.

Fearless ran toward the old man, placing the torch in his hand on the altar. His head was full of thought. He thought about trying to support the old geezer, making him lie in a more comfortable position, maybe? Or put the old man on the altar, maybe that will give him more warmth or started a fire in this room. However, the moment Fearless touched the old man, the geezer was dreadfully cold and rigid, so rigid that Fearless could not even bend the old man’s body over to carry him. Fearless checked the old man’s chest again, no beat.

“Can you not toy with my expectation like that? I was so happy that I thought I’m finally not alone anymore,” Fearless let loose of his suppressed anger, stomping on the cold floor as he began to tear up.

The old geezer farted again.

“Fuck you. How can a person be so rude?”

Again, the geezer farted.

“I’m not talking to you anymore. Fuck you,” Fearless swore at the old geezer as he stomped out of the room in frustration.

And the geezer farted boomingly without any sense of modesty as if triumphed.

That day, Fearless earned his first verbal argument defeat in the world of Reign of Chaos ever, handed by a farting corpse no less.

Fearless took pride in his ability to stay positive for as long as he could in the worst hours. Being defeated in a verbal argument with a farting corpse is not the worst experience I had, Fearless told himself, trying to be as positive as he possibly could be. To fight a negative thought, a person can always dwell on a positive memory or cling to a worst kind of memories. The worst experience he had was not even that dark memory when his The Alliance got swept in the final by an underdog team. It was not even the time when his sex tapes with an up and rising gravure idol got leaked to public media. Or that time, or that time…

If Fearless was to sit and thought of the worst experience he had ever had, that one time he woke up butt naked on a king-sized bed with a handful of naked dudes and a freaking Bengal tiger was easily one of his worst experiences. In addition, it didn’t even come from the fact that when he woke up, he was holding the tiny shriveled penis of that one dude in his hand. It was those questions that kept popping up inside his head at that time.

Question like “Did I …?” made him immediately touched his own magnum to check for the evidence that he wholeheartedly wished do not exist. It did not, great, Fearless was beside himself with sheer exaltation. But the followed-up question “Did they …?” completely terrified him. He checked his ass, groping his own ass with his fingers but he had no idea how to examine for the evidence this time. He had no knowledge of how that stuff even worked. Then, before he could even calm himself, he saw that Bengal tiger was also on the bed. He immediately told himself that it was a really big stuff toy despite the creature breathed soundly in front of him. Its tail waved left and right, its chest up and down. That’s a really realistic stuff toy, Fearless assured himself, got up from the bed as discreetly as he could possibly be. The giant stuff toy woke up all of the sudden.

While the rest of the dudes belonged to the naked dudes association were snoring soundly, completely unmoving as if they pretended to play dead. The beast woke up. Its triangular ears perked up like a guard dog observing a stranger came close to its territory. The tiger stared and looked into Fearless’ eyes with its hypnotic amber eyes. Fearless froze up, right on the spot, without moving a single muscle. He just stayed where he was, one foot still on the bed, one foot almost touch the floor while entering a staring contest with the beast. Fearless could almost swore that he heard Lionel Richie’s suave voice singing Hello inside the back of his head while locking eyes with the tiger, except there was no such thing, that was the sound of his racing heart. Fearless did not know how long the staring contest would last but he instinctively felt that he must not break the eye contact with the beast. Somehow, he came out wining in the contest. The beast suddenly broke the eye contact and yawned, its reddened toothy mouth opened wide. However, Fearless had no time to celebrate. The beast got up, licking its lips with its big red tongue and approached Fearless.

The tiger was huge and heavy. Its paw sunk deep into the mattress with each step it took. Fearless desperately tried to reestablish eye contact with the tiger, hoping that he could stop it, and it did, staring into his eyes with its hypnotic amber eyes but it did not slow down. One of the dude slept near the edge of the gargantuan mattress flopped out of the bed because of the beast’s movement and hit the ground with a thud. That halted the beast. It trained its eyes at that one naked dude. The bastard somehow could still sleep some more despite just hit the floor. He produced some small unintelligible noises within his mouth, then scratched his bushy crotch and rolled over to sleep again.

The tiger wore that, “Meh, not interested,” looked on its face, turned and reengaged eye contact with Fearless and approached him again. By this time, Fearless swore that this tiger must be a monster or something. It had a gorgon look that completely petrified him. He had decided to run, to scream, to wake up all of those naked dudes, but he could do nothing. He could neither move his legs nor arms. He could make no sound. He just stood, staring right into the feline’s eyes, doing nothing until he could feel its hot and damp breath on his face.

Fearless breathed as quietly as he could. He was surprise by the soapy smell exuded from the tiger's body and was secretly hoping that the big cat was completely domesticized. And, It hurt, Fearless did not know what prompted the tiger to do what it has done, to lick his baby magnum with its barbed red tongue. It hurt. It hurt, like really hurt, like really bad. It hurt so much. Fearless could not even move a muscle despite the pain he experienced at that moment.

The tiger licked, and licked and it licked some more.

It hurt. It hurt so fucking bad, like real bad, like really bad, like really really bad, like his baby magnum would be torn off, Fearless thought.

Fearless was terrified. He was completely terrified by the thought that he could be attacked and killed if he stopped the beast from licking his baby magnum or his baby magnum would be eaten by the beast or worse.

In that instance, for reasons that only Gods knew, his baby magnum suddenly decided that enough was enough. It demanded its right of freedom and independency out of nowhere and grew to size to combat the aggressor.

“To fight the evil colonizer, the boy grew into the man in a hurry, he knew he had to, his people needed him.”

What the fuck are you doing?

Fearless silently screamed at his baby magnum, his eyes blurred up because of pain. However, the brainless bastard, the brain dead bastard, it refused to revoke its right for freedom and independent, and fought back against the aggressor without a single plan.

A single shot broke the stillness of the oppressed. War has arrived. War has begun.

“Freedom, independence, dead to the invader, dead to the agressor, dead to the enemy, dead.”

The tiger ran away like a giant pussy it was. The war was fought and won with a single shot. The brain dead baby magnum had won the day. It fucking did it.

Fearless silently cheered for the victory of the oppressed people, making a gusto pose. The oppressed people had won against the evil colonizer. Justice has been served. Only then, Fearless had the luxury to comprehend of what just happened, the implication of that victory. The tiger was defeated. It was a victory for his baby magnum but it was not a victory for him. He got done in by a tiger.

Fearless has thought that dark page of his history would improve his mood because that it was the worst experience he had ever had, therefore, it could only be better. But he ended up crushed instead.

He got owned by a farting corpse and got done in by a tiger.