"The reptilians tried to sink this very kingdom in the sea of the second ring several decades ago," -Lumi told me, Illustrating to me with her wings and trails of magical light how it had happened- "The king has his suspicions that they want to try again just before tomorrow's elections."
"We tried to look for them for months, but those bandits won't come out of their caves," Saaden said, cleaning his teeth with a toothpick.
"Getting to the point, the idea is to intercept them tonight; if they want to sabotage something, they would have to prepare for that; that's where we will attack. Lumi already communicated with the rest of the selected adventurers, so we won't be alone, and seeing that you have something pending with one of them, I don't see why not ask for your help." -Shizar said.
"I accept; when do we leave?" -I said to Shizar.
"Right now, there is no time to waste. Let's go."- Shizar said, getting up from his chair and walking to the exit.
"I ASK FOR THE PADDED CARRIAGE SEAT,"- Saaden exclaimed.
"HAHAHA, Who mentioned a carriage? We don't have any money; we spent it all on new equipment; get your hairy buttocks ready; we're going by wagon.
"Damn it... I told you that armor was way over budget!" -Saaden said, walking out of the tavern with Shizar.
"It will be a pleasure to work with you," - I said to Lumi, extending my hand by way of greeting.
But Lumi rejected my greeting, lightly slapping my hand away with her "wing-hand," frowning as she stared at me.
"I'll be blunt, I don't know who you are or where you came from, and even if you help us, I don't have a good feeling about you; you'd better not try anything weird, or you'll be dealing with me."
"Pretend my presence doesn't matter; I just want to get my work done and paid."
"I'll be watching you."
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- "That's how I left with them, heading for the southern part of the Central Beast Kingdom, where tomorrow's elections would take place, a city called Sorean, which they told me is a city dedicated to the leisure and amusement of the beasts, the city that never sleeps, where gambling and showmanship are the law. You either get rich there, or you end up losing everything."
- "My favorite city in the whole Kingdom by far, now that's living life the way it should be lived."- Hunter said to me, leaning back on the grass.
- "Could it be because you were always cheating to win?"
- "Laws of nature, Human; the most attentive takes the prize. Someone like you cannot understand that. How do you think I got these?" -Hunter showed me the chains wrapped around his arms.
- "Your chains?"
- "Noooooo, The human farms of the northern zone," -Hunter told me sarcastically- "OF COURSE THE CHAINS IMBECILE. These beauties cost a fortune, magical chains that are infinitely long and squeeze you like cobra beasts, allowing me to wipe out anyone cowardly enough to stay away."
- "Funny, I don't remember it being like that in our fight."
- "Keep telling the story at once...will you."
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After a few hours of travel, we had arrived at our destination.
"We're here; make sure you don't forget your stuff; this is the day the beast mammals come out triumphant!". -"First time here "Slenkain"?" said Shizar, getting off the wagon excitedly.
"Yes, and it's pronounced Spacetime, anyways, I've never seen a city so empty."
"That's only during the day; at night is when it gets good, hehe." -Saaden said, eating some berries, "You haven't eaten anything the whole trip; have a couple of these."
"No thanks,"-I replied-"I'm not hungry."
"It's about three hours before dark; we should get ready and go to the arena," - Lumi said, taking a backpack full of scrolls.
"Arena, what do you mean?" - I asked.
"The monarchy here doesn't work like in most kingdoms; here, every seven years, there is an electoral contest among the beasts to see who will be the next ruler of the Central Kingdom, you can see it as a tournament, you fight one on one until the last one standing faces the heir to the throne by descent."-Lumi told me.
"Interesting, and I guess the reptilians think the arena would be a good place to sabotage."
"HEY, come now, the other adventurers are already prepared!"- Saaden exclaimed, helping to load Shizar's weapons and gadgets.
"Don't get in our way"- Lumi said to me, quickly redirecting the word to Shizar - "Going, I was just counting my scrolls!"
The combat arena was huge; on second thought, it looked more like a coliseum with its gigantic stands, massive doors leading to subway sites where the contenders prepared, and a private area for the king and prince.
The night was falling and the warriors had gone to the private area for the nobility to investigate and search for reptilian traces, while the wizards were using their magic to search for reptilian mana traces, others were conjuring powerful spells to have them ready in case they were attacked.
While I and the others were put on watch, since I didn't have an adventurer's passbook, they didn't know what I was capable of, so they put me on watch, along with other adventurers of not-so-useful combat skills.
Silence reigned in the arena; we waited and waited, but nothing appeared; many adventurers had started chattering about their adventures with others, and I even saw some night flirtations among them.
Suddenly, one of the vigilant adventurers spotted a silhouette in the shadows moving quickly towards the east wall of the arena; three adventurers climbed down the walls and followed the silhouette. The wizards concentrated their efforts on trying to locate it with their magic.
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But time passed, and they did not return...
"I can't see anything in my vision," -said one wizard- "Neither can I," -said another- "I can't see anything in my vision."
From a distance, Shizar shouted to us
"LUMI, SAADEN, "ESPENKTAIN"! COME WITH ME! I'LL BRING THEM BACK!
With one leap, Shizar jumped from the bleachers to where the other three adventurers disappeared.
"Shizar, WAIT FOR ME. My name won't go down in history if I don't go with you." - Saaden shouted.
"What are those idiots doing; they'll draw attention to whatever that was." -said one of the adventurers-.
"At your orders, Shizar,"- Lumi said as she took flight with her wings going to him.
I climbed down the sand wall so I could meet up with my group; it seemed they had found something.
"Look... it's a tunnel; surely the others went this way." -Said Shizar.
"So what are we waiting for? I don't think we're going to find them if we stay here." - I told them. - "These tracks, they don't belong to any of you, they're fresh. Follow me; they can't be that far."
We entered the narrow tunnel, confident of finding the missing beasts and most likely the reptilians at the end.
The trip was not very comfortable, it must be said; there were parts of the tunnel flooded, and Lumi had to drain the water with her magic, although that helped, we all ended up covered in mud.
Finally, after so long in the tunnel, we made it out onto a small dirt road, and what we saw next was quite impressive.
"W-what is this...?" "It's huge!" "It can't be..."-Said my companions in succession-.
It turns out they had been under our feet all this time. The reptilians had built a base of operations under the sand, a giant cave storing all their artillery; we had arrived in one of the highest parts of the cave; the cave was supported by pillars of hardened mud and emanated a kind of magical energy.
In the center of it, they had a great crystal, one of those that came with the meteor that created the dome, which they used as a source of power for their machines to continue eating away at the ground beneath the beast terrain.
Ah... the last words I remember from this part are...
"GET THEM!"
And everything went dark.
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- "What?" -said Hunter
- "We got caught."- I replied.
- "HOW COULD THEY NOT NOTICE, ARE THEY BLIND, DEAF, OR RETARDED?"
- "Says the one who has never faced a reptilian in his life; they are silent and can be upside down all the time when we arrive; they saw us immediately and captured us."
- "Are you an idiot, or do you make yourself one; you could against my magnificent self; why couldn't you with those vermin? One swing of the sword, and escape."
- "The fool is rather you; in fact, if I allowed myself to be captured by the reptilians, they would take me to their leader, and hopefully, I would find Leqkyu."
- "Mhm... Go ahead and continue".
- "More like enough for today, you need to rest and I can tell you more about tomorrow on the way."
Hunter stood up and walked over to me.
- "I demand that you CONTINUE! You filthy rat, you crawling animal!
Without thinking twice, I unsheathed my sword, and in one swift movement, I grabbed the sword from the edge with my right hand and struck the hilt into the beast's neck, knocking it unconscious.
- "Hmm... that insult... was it for me, for him, or for the rat beasts?... -I said to myself- "I'm afraid to inform you that I need to keep you alive until I get to Origin; I can't let 'that' happen again, not again."
I took advantage of what was left of the night to inspect my bracelet; after I managed to get it there and see how it was wired, I was able to get it to enter recovery mode; unfortunately, I could not get it to work at all, and I could only access a few functions, I had no signal from the "Ones from Above" so I could not receive missions nor know how much time I have left to live. But I could access the database I had downloaded; all the planets I have visited are there. The compass and maps worked as well, local location, likewise, a mini-map function that projects a top view of the relief and entities 5 kilometers around, I stayed researching and working until dawn."
- "Eh-where am I? EHHHHHHH?" - Hunter exclaimed as he woke up in surprise.
- "Finally, you wake up, Hunter; we've been on the road for about three hours; I'll let you know I know exactly where we are."
- "REALLY? HOW? W-Wait, what are you doing carrying me?" -Hunter said as he got off of me.
- "You never woke up, and I had to carry you on my shoulder. If we want to move north we have to keep going." -
- "Don't forget my first question, Human. You said you know where we are; go ahead and say so."
- "We are on Küpperniko, a bi-stationary planet, we are in summer.
- "Bi-what, summer, seasons?"
- "Ah, right, in Lydenfrost, there are no seasons. In simple words, half the year is hot, and the other half is cold. There is a tropical jungle side and a desert side in summer, where we are now.
- "I think I understand... a little bit."
- "We have to get to some shelter before winter."
- "And that?"
- "This place will flood, and the other side will rise, the earth will split, and we are likely to sink to the bottom of the planet in all the chaos."
Hunter was stunned, completely frozen, with a look of terminal fear on his face.
- "Forget about that; it must be more than a month before the change of season. What's more, now that I know where we are, I know a place where I went before. You'll get over it; I'll keep telling you about the reptilians, puppy."
- "WHAT DID YOU CALL ME!!!!?!?"
-And he's back... well, moving on with the story.
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We were carried like sacks of potatoes, all over the facility, the others were unconscious from a sleeping pill and tied up, I could hear little inside the sack, but I knew they were working on something big by the sounds of machinery working.
They took us to a closed room, put us on our knees, and removed our sacks.
"What just happened?"" We got caught, that happened,""REPTILIANS, BE CAREFUL!" -Saaden, Lumi, and Shizar said in sequence.
"Hey, calm down," I said. -
"They sent four more... Excellent. I see some of you are awake already, Excellent, excellent." - Said a snake beast in front of me, it looked like a cobra, the beast was dressed in robes and was sitting on a wooden throne- "It was unexpected that you guys showed up here, but you are nothing more than a minor setback, Right, master builder?".
-That's right Kai, that's right, consider yourself lucky to have me, and my inventions. -Said Leqkyu
-Leqkyu, you have never failed me up to this point. I will let you do the honors of executing them. -Said Kai
- "I'll go get it, my lord."
My companions were struggling as best they could, trying to free themselves from their restraints. While I watched as they brought something that looked like a quadruple guillotine.
-Ah, the guillotine, a classic of classics, excellent; it will be a nice show to show tomorrow morning to the beasts when we plunge their precious Kingdom into the sea," - Kai said.
"You won't get away with this; the other adventurers will come and make snake ceviche out of you, you evil abomination!" - Said Shizar -
"We'll see if that comes true, dear beast; we're using that stone to erect a barrier just like the dome that surrounds all of Lydenfrost, unbreakable. We break through the flow of magic to be undetectable, there's nothing that can stop us now... Leqkyu, the guillotine. Now."
"At your service, my lord."
Tied up, they put our necks in line with the blade of the quadruple guillotine, Shizar was still trying to escape somehow; Lumi had already given up, while Saaden had broken down in tears.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I DON'T WANT TO DIE I DON'T DESERVE THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSS" -shouted Saaden.
"First time?" - I said.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, FIRST TIME?! THEY'RE GOING TO KILL US!
Kai looked pleased with his outlook, seeing the last hope of the beasts fall in front of his eyes; he could already imagine our heads rolling on the mud floor, leaving our bodies lifeless. Or so he thought.
"It was a good show, gentleman, but I think it's about time we got this over with don't you think? - I said to Kai
"Yes... it's time for them to die."
"No, I meant for me, actually."
With a jerk, I broke the bonds of my hands, and with my neck, I broke the piece of wood that held me fixed to the guillotine, took my sword, and in one leap, cut the top of the guillotine into pieces, freeing my companions in the process.
"GET THEM!" -Kai gave the order, and his lackeys surrounded us with spears.
"Sapeislait? What... is this?" -said Shizar in amazement.
"Don't ask questions and fight, we're surrounded! And for the third time, it's Spacetime!" -I said to Shizar and the other two.
"I think it's time... time to use it." - Shizar said-.
"No, Shizar no, this is no time to "play", forget about that magic item NOW"- Lumi shouted at Shizar.
"W-W-Wait, what are you talking about! -Saaden said
"I don't see any other way out of this, Lumi," said Shizar, pulling out an hourglass-shaped object with a twenty-sided die inside, "Let the game begin! Damn Lizards!"
Shizar pressed the hourglass on its ends, and a blinding glow came off it.... so much so that I could barely see in front of my nose... until the glow stopped and...