by Dakota Krout
“Halt! This is the King’s road and leads to the warfront. Turn back, unless you are on official business.” The leader of the sentries called. In an instant, Luke was in front of the man. His hand was wrapped around the sentry’s skull, but a harsh *chime* made him pause.
“Oh.” Luke looked at Zed. “This one not bandit?”
“No, that one soldier. Many protect Kingdom. Very Official. Wow.” Zed shakily informed Luke, who let go of the soldier… after stealing his sword. It wasn’t sneaky in the slightest; he tore the entire scabbard and belt off the man and tossed it into his oddly half-empty sack. “By chance, did you have a stroke, or are your speech capabilities just naturally declining?”
Andre spoke up before anyone could get too angry. “Greetings, loyal heroes of the Hollow Kingdom! We are a part of the new Ascender’s Corps, and have been tasked with helping this front until we have either won the war or been given new orders! Where can we go to announce our presence?”
The sentries calmed down nearly instantly, smiling at the figure that had suddenly turned into a golden Adonis in their eyes. The leader took one last look at the sword that had been stolen, but reluctantly gave up on getting it back. “Welcome, Ascenders. I’ll show you to your commanding officer, and you can explain to him that I will need a new weapon, if that’s fine by you.”
“Of course,” Taylor replied graciously, getting a thankful smile in return.
“There’s more swords?” Luke butted into the conversation, getting a glare in return from the man.
“…Yes. This is a warzone. If we aren't making them, you can always take them off the people you kill at the front.” The sentry started walking, as did the group. The ball of bandits and vines got a confused look as it rolled along, but it was not even close to the strangest thing that they had ever seen.
“You’re saying that I can keep all the weapons of anyone I kill out there? What about armor?” Luke was questioning the sentry intently, and the man was getting annoyed.
“Yes, that is how it works. Spoils of war. You can keep it, or turn it in to the logistic group for the coin value of the gear.” They were passing through the camp at this point, and only Luke and Taylor didn’t flinch at the sounds and smells that were washing over them. Blood, sweat, latrines, death, screams, the clash of distant weapons… Taylor didn't react because her spells were keeping the scent away, and Luke didn't react because he was so used to the stench.
They only paused once, to unload all of the bandits into a forced conscription area. Without the giant rolling ball of plant matter, they were able to move much faster. They got closer and closer to the front, finally reaching a command center. The sentry walked up to the door, knocked briskly, and stood back. A ragged aide-de-camp threw the door open almost instantly, looking over them but letting his eyes linger on the sentry. “Report.”
“Sir, Ascenders fresh from the training of the Kingdom. The four of them are here to report in and take on an assignment.” The sentry waited there until he received a salute in reply.
“Understood.” The officer glanced at the group tiredly, “Listen, there will not be a terribly huge amount for you to do here. Most of our Ascender assets are held back; people like you only go in if an Ascender shows up in their battle group. Go find a place to hunker down: there’s your orders. If we just let Mages and such do whatever they want, this war will get out of hand far too quickly. This is a defensive war; all we need to do is discourage them enough, and they tend not to press the attack.”
The group was generally okay with that, even though it meant they would be here for a long, long time. “I'll get you set up with the nice tents, in the officers’ quarters. We will get you situated and introduced to the men tomorrow, so just get some rest tonight. One question for you all…?”
“Sir?” Andre tried to speak respectfully, though his stomach was threatening to rebel as another scream reached his ears.
“Didn't you say something about… four of you?”
Andre, Taylor, and Zed looked at each other and around with paling faces. At that precise moment, bellowed words trickled into their ears from a distance.
“Bum Rush!”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Luke had gotten bored simply walking when there was a fight that was clearly in progress. His sack of swords and armor had mostly been absorbed by Walking Arsenal by the time they had reached the encampment, though he needed another one hundred and fifty steel swords before he would be able to generate his own with his Mana. Sure, he was in the process of absorbing one right now, thanks to that sentry guy, but one sword was not going to cut it.
“Ha! Cut it! I'm still funny.” Luke laughed uproariously as he jogged at a fast pace toward the front. He could see trenches in the distance, places where men could hide from artillery spells or duck into during a cavalry charge. As he moved, the last of the equipment he had… salvaged from the guard post finished vanishing into motes of mana. Luke decided to throw away his ragged, damaged blanket. He grabbed an entire tent as he went through the area, a small one, and didn't even bother to fold it up.
He got closer to the battle, and the ground under his feet became muddy and bloody - in a word: disgusting. Luke didn't mind. He moved faster, faster, and finally was in range. Words tore from his lips, and in his excitement, he bellowed. “Bum Rush!”
Luke crossed the last one hundred meters in a flash, his legs pumping as fast as they could. He swung his fist, hitting a surprised soldier that had been planning on skewering one of his countrymen with a sword. His new sword.
Damage: 119 (Blunt)
The soldier that he hit collapsed; dead in an instant. Luke waited for the Potentia updates, but nothing appeared. He spat on the ground and furiously growled, “They aren't even worth Potentia? How weak are they?”
Grabbing the sword that the soldier had been planning to use as it fell, Luke pinned the tent that he had brought with him to the ground. Three more basic attacks, three more soldiers defeated, and three swords added to the pile. Now that the tent had been pinned down in each of the four corners, Luke went on a rampage. There was simply nothing the standard soldiers could do to stop him. Their attacks hit him, arrows slammed into his body - most landing on his mana-made armor and falling off - but Luke continued moving. “Time to get geared up!”
The arrows stopped after barely penetrating his skin, and the swords created sparks as they skittered off of his glowing armor. Five, ten, thirty men dead on the ground in under two minutes. It would have been more, faster, but Luke was taking the time to carefully remove their armor and pile everything onto his pinned-down tent.
Even so, he was moving faster than any standard human could hope to match. There was one last push to try to defeat him; clearly, they were not thinking straight because of the rush of adrenaline in their minds. All the charge of the full battalion of soldiers did… was make Luke grin.
“Bum Rush!” He didn't bother to control himself. Luke simply barreled directly into the group as it ran at him. Anyone in his way was crushed, and when he stopped, he was surrounded on all sides. His fists began to lash out; for most of the people Luke attacked, the last thing that they saw was a glowing afterimage of goat horns closing in on their face.
“Soldier! What in tarnation are you doing? Ascenders are not allowed to take the field!” The shout was coming from Luke's side of the encampments, but he ignored it in favor of stripping the weapons and armor from the fallen battalion of men. “You are going to force them to send out their Mages!”
That didn't even give Luke pause; instead, he turned to look at the man running toward him across no-man's-land in excitement. “Mages…! Will they have magic weapons or armor?”
“Does it matter if they have them? Can you survive getting hit by a meteor?” The Officer was shouting in his face at this point, and only Luke's Sigil kept him from reducing this man to a meat paste as well. “I am ordering you to get your rear behind our front lines! I’ll be taking you to the General imme
diately!”
“Who are you?” Something about this Officer was ringing a bell in Luke's mind. He looked down, “Nice boots.”
“I am Captain Baker, and you are in direct violation of the Ascender accords!” Captain Baker grabbed at Luke, but the Murderhobo simply continued doing what he was doing, and the Captain showed surprise as he was easily dragged along. “Are you trying to bring the full might of the Dynasty of Dogs down on us?”
“You can’t order me to do anything. We’re the same rank. One hundred ten… one twenty?” Luke shook his head and stopped counting. “I need ten more, be right back.”
With that, Luke left a flabbergasted Captain standing over the newly-acquired gear, and charged into enemy lines once more. Ten bodies and swords were rapidly thrown toward the Captain, and he dived out of the way to allow them to land on the spread-eagle tent. Luke returned to the Captain, pulled the swords that were holding the tent out of the ground, and finally rolled everything up into a makeshift sack. He tossed the blood-dripping sack over his back and coolly regarded the man in front of him. “All right, where are we going now?”
“Abyssal crazy Ascenders!” Captain Baker started running back toward the encampment, with Luke easily keeping pace with him despite carrying over a hundred swords and a bulging sack full of armor. “There's something wrong with you, isn't there, boy?”
“Not anymore! Got the swords I need.” Luke replied directly as he hopped over a trench. “Armor too. Needed something for my head and legs; been trying to make goat hide work, and it just never did.”
“Goat hide? What?” Captain Baker looked at Luke askance, then turned to face him fully. “Hold a moment, I know you… you are the son of that leatherworker we got our boots from. What’s it been, two years? Three? What happened to you, lad?”
Luke didn't reply, though his eyes did wander to the tracks that Captain Baker was leaving in the mud. There was a symbol there, the same symbol that now appeared on his Sigil. Captain Baker seemed to have calmed down, and the realization that he knew the man he was running with had put him in a different frame of mind. “You don't even know it, but you made a huge mess of things here. I'll do what I can to put in a good word for you. I suppose no one has explained the rules, if you have just arrived?”
“That sounds correct.” Luke didn't actually care about the rules, but if it would keep him from having to do annoying things, he would agree every time.
“On the plus side, you wiped out a swath of our enemies, which should be enough to give our men a day off. Unless you royally pissed off the enemy commander, of course. I guess we’ll see by tomorrow,” Captain Baker sighed, and they slowed down as they made their way through the Officer’s area and arrived at the tent that Luke had seen his group approaching earlier. “General, Captain Baker reporting in! I have a SitRep for you, a critical incident.”
The aide-de-camp came out, took a single look at Luke, and went back indoors. A few moments later, a man who was clearly a General and in charge of the area stepped out. There was something about him, an aura of power and authority, which made Luke realize that he was in the presence of another Ascender. That made sense to him; if the person with the most authority in the area was a standard human, the Ascenders would have run roughshod over him. In fact… oh. Luke realized that he had already seen Generals back when he returned to this world, and they were all Ascenders as well.
“Report, Captain.”
“Sir! An Ascender fresh out of the Initiate ranks arrived today, this man here, and joined at the battlefield immediately. He killed nearly two hundred opponents before I was able to stop him, took only about… four and a half minutes.” Captain Baker explained as succinctly as possible, swallowing deeply as he realized how short that timeframe had actually been. “He had not been taught the rules, simply rushed in as soon as he got here. I don't think he was trying to destroy our battle rhythm; he was just over-enthusiastic.”
“I'll be the judge of that.” The General locked eyes with Luke, giving him a stare down that would have made a normal person cringe. “I got a report from the Archmage about a troublesome individual that would be joining us shortly. I can only assume that you are the… Murderhobo, is it?”
“That's what I'm told.” Luke was clearly uninterested, his entire focus on the weapons and armor that were contained in the rolled tent he was holding.
“I suppose you have not been informed as to exactly what that title means.” Power was gathering around the General. He was clearly displeased with the dismissive attitude Luke was displaying. “I was told that the Enchanter who applied that name didn't even understand exactly how apt a title it was. A Murderhobo is a derogatory term for a criminal Ascender, a person who wanders the world, unattached to any community, indiscriminately killing and looting.”
Luke simply shrugged. It sounded like the name was fitting. The General narrowed his eyes further, practically squinting at Luke. “By the Enchanter's report, he named you that because you said that your portal leads you to a place called ‘Murder World’, your gear was all over the place, and you smelled terrible. In fact, he wanted your class name just to be ‘ hobo’, but you were too powerful to offend so directly. That clearly did not work out well for him, as our healers are still working to stabilize his condition.”
“However, that was proof that your Sigil does not work as it should. You should not be able to attack members of our Ascender Corps, nor should you be able to be so disrespectful to the Military Officers around you.” At this point, the aide-de-camp stepped out of the tent and handed a file over to the General. The General opened it, read over a few lines and nodded, then handed it to Luke. “There is only one thing that we can do. You need to be stationed further away from our area, where your tendencies will not impact people like they will here. Here are your new orders.”
An awkward silence stretched, with the General holding out the folder, and Luke ignoring him. Finally, the General barked, “Take the folder, and get out of my sight!”
Luke’s Sigil lit up, and his hand stretched out to take the folder. As soon as he did, information poured into his mind.
Quest failed: Assist the warfront! You lose two months’ worth of pay. A new Quest has been assigned.
Quest gained: Sending monsters after monsters (Repeatable). You have been deemed too dangerous to remain in the same area as other humans. You and your team will now be employed as Kingdom-sanctioned bounty hunters, gaining pay and resources only by completing dangerous and deadly tasks that others are deemed too valuable to be sent to complete.
Your first task is to reclaim a mountain pass in the Northeast section of the Kingdom; a map has been provided. The pass has fallen to the Dynasty of Dogs, but the method they used to capture the pass is unknown. There are reports that monsters are involved. Succeed, or die trying.
Reward: Pay and Merit commiserate with the danger and difficulty of the mission. This will be evaluated by your Sigil once the mission has been completed. All rewards must be received in person by your Commanding Officer. Failure: death.
“Any questions?” The General was hoping to see doubt, fear, uncertainty. All he got in reply from Luke was a smile.
“I'm not seeing a time limit.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The four team members were marching through the woods again, but this time, everyone except Luke was in a very bad mood. Zed glared at the Murderhobo and had to hold back his scream of frustration. “Seriously, when you notice a flaw like a lack of a time limit? You keep that to yourself. You could have just… left! Gone to do anything you wanted to do for the next several decades, or until one of the members of the nobility caught up to you! Instead, you taunt the General right to his face!”
“I admit, was not my smartest move.” Luke’s eyes were always roving, scanning the environment for threats or resources that he would be able to use. “I didn’t realize that it was possible to modify quests.”
“If they can make them, why couldn’t they chang
e them?” Taylor questioned him. “The logic is very simple; you need to use your head.”
Luke was quiet for a while, but then he turned and locked eyes with Andre. “I have been alone for the vast majority of my life, and for most of that time, I was desperately hoping to get back in contact with my friends and family. However. I have forgotten you. Tell me what I have missed.”
“Are you trying to become friends with me all over again?” Andre bellowed, slamming his Livingwood staff on to the ground and causing plants in the area to wave around wildly. Luke tensed up, preparing himself for the inevitable combat. “Excellent! I'm glad you are reaching out; let's talk!”
Everyone except for Andre was dizzy at that instant change in demeanor; the Druid simply started speaking. “We touched on our situations lightly, so let’s dig in deeper. I was tossed into the Druidic Grove world, and found that my master had an extremely sadistic streak. He used me as a test subject for his plans to advance his career, and the worst part… is that everything was successful. It worked amazingly well, and I gained power fast.”
“Later on, it turned out that he was actually a very nice guy, and we became good friends. Let me see… I can tell you this, but you can’t tell others, agreed? Good. I reached level eight, and am focused in Capacity. The thing that set me apart in the first place was my massive mana pool, and my goal has always been extraordinary changes in territory. This means that I need huge reserves of mana, else my goals are not achievable.”
A short period of silence followed, then Zed stepped in. “That's it? What your focus is when talking about a sub-characteristic? What about your powers? Things that you can do? …Nifty anecdotes, perhaps?”
