Liam woke up on a bed.
And instantly wondered if he was dead and this was the afterlife. Because that was Tradition. A strange Tradition, sure, but one anyways, so he might as well respect it.
And, as tradition dictated, he realized immediately that this wasn’t the afterlife, and if it was he wanted a refund, because a green colored tent didn’t look like a good place to stay in after a life of tribulations.
"Oh, you’re finally awake." said someone from his side.
He turned around, and saw a man with shoulder length blonde hair looking at him from a nearby chair. His posture was slumped, his shoulders hunched over, making him look small. He was definitely tired.
He wore something similar to a coverall, all black, except for a few places here and there on the arms that appeared slightly discolored.
His gloves, surprisingly big all things considered, were resting on a small table by the side of the chair. They smelled of alcohol, and were nearly gray from use.
"Morning calls, boy, and you’ve been summoned by the [King] himself for an audience."
Liam opened his mouth, his lips parting slowly after an indefinite amount of time sealed, and realized he was thirsty.
He tried to communicate it to the man, but he just pointed to a pitcher of water and a glass sitting on the small table beside the gloves. How hadn’t he noticed those?
He tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace. He extended a hand and tried to lift the pitcher. He nearly immediately gave up as he felt the lack of strength in his arms. He knew for sure he’d make it fall if he took it in his hands.
The man hit himself on the face as he realized the mistake and batted his hand away, pouring him a glass of water and helping him drink it.
"Sorry about this boy. If it were me, I’d have you stay in bed for another day or two. But the [King] said to call you the moment you woke up. I’m gonna make sure you’re not going to die the moment you step away from this bed, though. Worst case scenario, I’ll tell him you still have to wake up. Or he’ll have to come here."
He drank down the water greedily, and immediately regretted it as he felt pain lance through my torso. He looked down, but could only see the light clothes he was currently wearing, noticeably not the ones he had when he’d appeared on that battlefield, and a hint of white bandages.
He then remembered what had happened. He remembered the last moments before that face appeared in his vision, how that horse had run him over, seemingly destroying his ribcage. How he had managed to survive through sheer luck as the bone fragments didn’t puncture his lungs or his heart, or anything too vital truth be told.
And he wondered how he could still be alive.
"How… am I… alive?" he asked, his voice rough from being unused for however much time he’d been unconscious.
"Nothing short of a miracle, boy. Our [War Necromancer] managed to Level Up once just from fixing your broken ribcage. Said it was in so many pieces he couldn’t even reassemble it back together, had to rebuild the bones from scratch using the fragments. He also said something about ‘upgrading the bone structure while he was at it’, but I assume that’s nothing to be afraid of. He’s yet to kill someone that isn’t an enemy."
Liam’s brain went into overdrive as he drank the information in. And then it stopped abruptly like a computer program glitching out as he realized two things: one, this man had talked about a [War Necromancer]. As in, one of those mages that raised dead bodies to make zombies and skeletons. The typical villains in most stories? And, as if that wasn’t enough, said necromancer had healed him and ‘upgraded’ his body! That felt so violating.
"I know kiddo, you didn’t ask for this. Probably a teleportation spell went awry somewhere and now you’re here. Not your fault, we’ve understood that a while ago. You’ll just have to answer a few questions, then we’ll be sending you back towards the country you came from."
That country was England. He was from London. And, after what he had just heard, and what he remembered from that battle, he doubted he was anywhere on Earth.
But would anyone believe him if he told them he wasn’t from this world? Or would they just call him crazy? Maybe they’d force him to fight again. Force him to go on that battlefield where he’d nearly died multiple times. Force him to take a sword and a knife, make him kill people, cut their throats and gut them, bathe the ground in red so that it may drink and grow strong and entertained.
His thoughts went spiraling down a red stairway in a red room with mirrors facing his way, and he could see the [Soldier] he’d killed, the people dying around him, the horse coming for him, a headless knight on top, flames erupting from the stump, as it screeched towards him with sword drawn, a messenger of death for him and him only.
Red seeped into his vision from around the room, his breathing becoming more and more ragged.
The [Soldiers] were whispering something. The same thing that voice had told him when he’d blacked out.
[Condition: Dreams Painted Red Contracted!]
They screamed and he clutched at his head, his mind wondering for a moment how this worked, how it was possible for him to be dreaming when he was awake. What he didn’t know was that the System wasn’t used to his world’s way of describing maladies, mental and physical. And so, what for him was commonly known as PTSD, the System called a ‘waking dream’, a daydream.
He didn’t know that, and he didn’t have the mental capacity for that right now. He was lost.
And then a hand landed on his shoulder. He turned around and started screaming even before seeing the figure of the flaming headless knight.
But the knight wasn’t whispering the same words as those other ghosts of his mind. No, it simply said this: [Soothing Presence].
The red slowly left his eyes. The mirrors began to bend and twist, slowly melting into the ground. The stairs were gone. The walls opened up. And he was in the tent again. The man who’d helped him was still sitting in the same place, posture still relaxed, even if now the gloves were on his hands.
But then, if he was still there, who was touching his shoulder?
He turned, and saw a small, feminine, hand. He looked up, seeing the slender arm, and upwards still, finally looking in the eyes the woman who’d somehow gotten him out of that downward spiral of maddening, twisted, memories.
He opened his mouth to talk, and only then noticed he was shaking uncontrollably. So he just looked at the woman and, still shaking, nodded his head in thank you. She nodded back, her face serious.
The man then spoke:
"Thank you, [Knight Commander] Amarie. I was about to administer a dose of anesthetic to calm him down."
Only then did Liam notice the syringe the man was holding in one of his hands.It was big, filled with a small dose of pinkish liquid. It looked quite well made, considering these people seemed to be in some sort of medieval time period. A fine tool.
"It was no problem, [Surgeon] Davis. But, may I suggest you don’t use one of those on a patient in the same state as this boy? That doesn’t stop the Dreams, it only makes it more difficult for the [Soldiers] to get out of them."
"I know, Dame Amarie, but it was that or risk him becoming violent, and the gods know what could happen then. I’d rather he doesn’t go ‘musician’ on us."
What did he mean ‘go musician’? What was so bad about a musician on a battlefield? Well, actually, there were multiple bad things, but they were mostly bad for the mad player than the soldiers.
"Fair. How’s it going in regards to my proposal for [Thought Healers] on the battlefields?"
"Poorly. The [Financers] of the kingdom don’t deem the expense worth it. It will bite their ass later on, and they’ll change their mind. Hopefully, when it happens, we won’t be killed."
The man, no, the [Surgeon], had spoken in such a dejected and tired tone he looked ten years older.
"You alright to go boy?" asked the Dame.
Liam nodded, and finally managed to find the strength to speak again.
"Yes. Thank you. What was that?"
"A Skill. Low level one, but surprisingly useful in the aftermath of any battle."
Liam raised his eyebrows slightly.
"What is a Skill?"
The Dame opened her mouth, then stopped, stumped. She looked down at the boy, and her own eyebrows shot in her hairline for a moment, before she regained her composure and looked at the [Surgeon].
"Maybe it’s worse than we thought?"
The man shook his head.
"He only got one Red Skill. A standard one, not an evolved one, probably. If you’re wondering if that’s scrambling his memories, then no, believe me, it’s not that."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
"But then how…"
"I don’t know. I am a [Surgeon], I only know how to fix people so that they may live another day. I don’t know the workings of the mind. Unless it entails opening someone’s head to see their brain."
There was some humor in that last sentence, but it sent a shiver down Liam’s spine.
"Don’t, [Surgeon] Davis. Your jokes have never managed to help anyone."
Then she turned back towards Liam, looking him up and down.
"Look, boy, I don’t know who you are, I don’t know where you’re from, and I have no idea how you appeared on that battlefield. I do want to know the answers to all those questions, but that’ll have to wait. Now, let me give you some tips for the upcoming meeting. His Majesty is not a kind man, nor a patient one. He dislikes lies, and has a Skill that acts like one of them [Truth] spells, so, whatever you do, don’t lie to him. If you’re lucky he’ll find you uninteresting or useless and let you go."
She didn’t say it, but he felt the second part of that sentence linger around him: if you’re unlucky, he’ll keep you around.
"Now, to answer your question, Skills are abilities given to us by the System, a being created by the Gods to make our lives easier, to reward us for our efforts. Skills go from simple upgrades to one’s physique to powerful abilities that can break the laws of reality. Naturally, the powerful things come with higher Levels. The higher Level you are, the stronger you become, with better Skills, but significant spikes in difficulty when it comes to gaining Levels. Skills and Classes also come in ‘colors’. Black is basic, green is uncommon, gold is rare. There are also rumors about purple Skills and Classes, but they say those come with Levels at 70 or higher, and the people who get there are so rare they might as well not exist."
Liam nodded his head, absorbing the information like a sponge left to dry in the desert for a week before being thrown in a lake.
Then he connected the dots.
"Wait, but you also talked about ‘Red Skills’, right?"
The woman’s smile turned sad, with a hint of unpleasantness.
"You’re an attentive one. Yes, they exist. You’ve got one, doesn’t take an [Appraisal] to see that. They’re not Skills strictly speaking. They are Conditions. Negative effects on your body and mind. Most [Soldiers] will get one at some point in their career. They’re hard to remove, nearly impossible, like most Skills. I’m sorry boy. The only thing I can tell you is to stay away from the battlefield. That should help."
She shook her head, then looked him dead in the eyes.
"Now follow me. I won’t tell the King about your questions. It will make you look strange. Which equates to ‘interesting’ for him."
She offered him her hand to help him up. He took it after a moment of hesitation. She gripped his hand, and she felt surprisingly strong as she lifted him bodily from the bed to help him stand on the floor of simple wooden boards.
"Can you walk?"
She asked after seeing him fumble for a moment to get his balance back. His legs ached. Hell, his entire body ached. But he grit his teeth and nodded.
Dame Amarie stared him dead in the eyes as she looked him over and whispered under her breath “[Check Condition]”. Her expression darkened.
"You’re in no condition to walk boy. You should be resting still."
Liam shook his head.
"I can do that later. Let’s rip the band-aid off."
The Dame furrowed her brows.
"What’s a band-aid?"
----------------------------------------
King Tibur Vanders, also called, behind his back, the Hollow King, was a man with simple desires: he wanted power, and he wanted his life not to be boring. Anything that could help him achieve any of the two was taken with no cares for the other’s desires.
It was a greedy mentality perfectly fitting of someone who had been an adventurer before becoming a [King]. That was the kind of thing that was possible in the continent of Rodar, better known as ‘The Cursed Continent’. If you wanted to say a joke about the place, it would be along this line: “It’s as if the gods looked at that continent and said ‘Fuck that place in particular’.”
It was a place where misfortune abounded and, with it, possibilities. Chances to rise! And many more chances to fall lower than the lowest piece of scum in this world. Because a man’s misfortune was another one’s fortune.
This is what had happened with Tibur Vanders. Once a Level 26 [Renown Swordsman], he had soon become bored of the usual dungeons filled to the brim with bloodthirsty monsters. Sure, if they managed to ambush you then you were in for quite the interesting fight, but apart from that they were just relatively mindless things that thought like animals. Sure, animals that could melt your face off, or spear your guts while accidentally walking by, or even chew you in half without you even noticing while you slept, but still animals.
And while they sometimes managed to satisfy his thirst for adventure, and surely kept him well fed, the adventuring business didn’t give him many hopes to rise through the ranks. Because he was good at his job. High Silver, close to Gold, even, but he knew he’d never reach Adamantine. He wasn’t crazy enough. Just greedy.
So he’d waited around, and at the first occasion, had organized a coup d’etat and dethroned some small [King] that nobody would miss.
Now he was a feared man who commanded one of the strongest armies on the continent, with everything he could ever desire!
And just yesterday his armies had won another battle! He and his high ranking officials had been celebrating since then.
Then, just to make his day better, he’d heard that some boy had appeared in the middle of the battle, seemingly out of nowhere, had run through the whole battlefield somehow managing not to get killed, had ended up in front of a running horse, been nearly stamped to death, and still managed to survive. If that wasn’t interesting, he didn’t know what was!
He had waited for the boy to come out of his coma since then.
And now that he was in front of him, he was all the more curious.
Because he wasn’t High Level. He didn’t look particularly strong, or smart, or anything really. He seemed average at best. Granted, there was a good chance that was because he had nearly died and was now sitting hunched over on a chair he’d been kindly offered.
Still, even with that, there was something in him. He was certain of it! How? Because of one of his Skills: [Sense Talent]. Obtained when he’d hit Level 20 of his [King] Class, it had helped him in getting this far. He had actually hoped to get one of those [Sense Loyalty] or [Sense Disloyalty] Skills. They were the most standard ones for [Kings], but he’d soon found out he had no need for them: there were other, more practical, ways of ensuring his people’s loyalty to him.
So his Skill kept pinging insistently at the boy in his mind, whispering to him that he had great potential. Potential for what? He didn’t know, and that was what made the boy so interesting.
He twisted a golden ring on his hand enchanted with an [Appraisal] spell, and more information appeared in his mind: the boy’s Classes, Skills, and the one Condition.
His eyes widened just a tiny bit as he saw the words and numbers: A Level 3 [Lucky Soldier] and a Level 1 [Mage Crafter]. He was so low level that it was as if he had never leveled all his life. How could that be? Also, how was it possible for the boy to have a green class at such a low level? A Fusion Class too, from what he remembered. It didn’t make any sense.
He’s definitely a keeper.
He thought. Sure, he couldn’t send him to battle: he had a Red Skill, and he hadn’t even had formal training in the use of swords. Frankly, he wasn’t even surprised he had obtained the [Lucky Soldier] Class, because he could’ve never survived without an enormous amount of luck. And there were laws about sending people with Red Skills in battle. Laws he himself had made to ensure his people didn’t start rebelling out of the blue.
"Tell me, Liam, where are you from?"
They’d been talking for a while now in his private tent, and finally he’d decided to ask the most pressing question. So far, the boy had been answering truthfully, telling him in as much detail as he was comfortable what had happened on the battlefield.
His spells, the only two he had bothered to learn, [Detect Truth] and [Detect Lie], were one of his greatest assets in one on one conversations. You may be wondering, why use both? Why not just use [Detect Lie] and see when someone told a lie? The answer was quite simple, and the fact that you asked meant you’ve never ever truly learned to lie: one could use some misguided answer built out of truths to tell a lie. After all, the best lies are the ones that contain a seed of truth.
"I’m from London, Your Majesty."
Simple and to the point. He liked that about this boy.
Also, it was easier on his small mana pool. He was no [Mage], after all.
Still, the answer surprised him. He had never heard of this city called ‘London’. Where was that? Surely it must have been a small village in some far off corner of the world if he’d never heard of it.
"I never heard of it. It must be a small place?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, with no malicious intent, just pure and simple curiosity.
The boy became visibly, or at least to him, who was an expert in reading people, more uncomfortable.
"No, Your Majesty. Where I’m from it’s considered quite big. It’s the capital city of the place."
Which was a complete Truth with no Lies whatsoever. It was, indeed, quite the big city where Liam was from. But the way he’d told it, oh, that was important. That was what he’d been doing so far: telling truths without any real context. Or rather, within the wrong context. The wrong world. So the [King] kept swimming in his sea of knowledge, completely unaware that the boy he was talking with was on a boat in another far away ocean.
That was what saved him from revealing the actual truth: that he was from another world.
"Hmmm… interesting. Well, I’ll look into that. Later. For now, you’ll be a guest in my country. Then, when we find your home, we’ll send you back. That failed [Teleportation] Spell was truly a misfortune."
Liam chuckled a bit.
"Indeed. But you could also say that the misfortune was repaid in good luck ten times over afterwards."
He tentatively smiled, and the [King] laughed out loud. Internally, the boy panicked. Tibur would look around for London, find out that it didn’t exist in this world, unless he was so lucky that someone had for some reason decided to name a city that same way, which he doubted, and, seeing that he hadn’t lied, he would start asking questions. Questions that would lead to him having to tell the actual truth.
So, in a fit of panic, his mouth talked without him thinking.
"Your Majesty, I actually find the prospect of going back quite dreadful. I would much rather stay here. This seems like a… more interesting place to stay."
There. He’d done it. FUCK!
Well, maybe not so much ‘Fuck’ as ‘A temporary solutions’.
Tibur Vanders practically beamed, his mind already forgetting about this phantomatic London and concentrating on the chance in front of him.
"Well, that’s simply great! I will be sending you back to the capital then, and give you refugee status. And send you to the local [Mage Crafter]. He will help you with your Class, I’m sure. And then, well, I’m sure you will be making a lot of interesting things for us."
Never once had the thought of helping the boy with his Red Skill come to his mind. It was better for him if he kept it. Easier to manipulate in the long run, if he decided to leave. He had him now, and wouldn’t be letting go anytime soon.
----------------------------------------
When Liam went back to the [Surgeon]’s tent, it was empty except for one person.
Dame Amarie.
She was sitting on a stool by the bed he’d been asleep on for the better part of a day.
She looked fast asleep, but she raised her head immediately as she heard the soft whisper of the fabric being opened and then closed.
"You’re back. And you’re staying."
Liam didn’t know how she knew that. He didn’t really care.
"I am."
She shook her head.
"You could have left, you know."
"Maybe, but there was no real way for me to go back, Dame."
"Is your home so far away that an entire kingdom couldn’t send you back?" she asked, one of her eyebrows raised questioningly.
"Indeed. Or, at least, that’s what I think."
She shook her head.
"I’ll probably be tasked with accompanying you back to the capital. The [King] always makes me do that as a reward and as insurance that his newest interest gets to stay safe."
She looked him straight in the eyes, then sighed, nodded, and with the most serious expression she could muster, like an otter trying to look murderous, said: "I hope you like ukuleles, because you’re gonna be hearing that instrument a lot on the way back."