Chapter 38: Chapter 38: Prince

Roland

Things were going Roland’s way. Hira’s tutorial hadn’t allowed any of the trial takers to kill each other, so, for the first time since his father’s assassination, he’d been able to walk around without hiding his identity.

The rebels had never had much support, what with how they used the blood of slaves, commoners, and nobles alike to power spells even before the rise of mana, leading to the apocalypse style integration in the first place. And the generals faction, despite having pretty much the entire military and most of the nobility as members before the tutorial, had started to show weakness as personal power began to matter more.

Meanwhile, Roland excelled in the tutorial, the only one to complete Torment level for all three challenges, and he had gained the most tutorial points by the end. The combat training throughout his childhood, combined with the skills gained being on the run for five years, had really helped.

This, along with a uniqueness which increased his effective Perception by 50% and his royal bloodline turning out to actually be magical, boosting the strength of martial skills, made him stand out.

So, of the three factions on Hira, the Rebels, the Imperial Generals, and the Royal Faction led by him, his was the most popular among the regular populace.

Using his tutorial points, he’d bought some treasures which had helped him advance his race, also increasing its grade to Uncommon, becoming something called a Human Skirmisher. Then, immediately upon leaving the tutorial, he’d chosen his class, the first to do so, gaining a large stat boost as a result.

 

Raindrop Ranger (F-Rare)

When it storms, you hunt

 

Effects:

Increase the effectiveness of the Agility and Perception stats by 6.25%

Increase all physical stats by 6.25% in the rain

 

Skill slots:

6

 

May not learn skills of the following categories:

Psychic

Fire

 

Stat bonuses per level:

Strength: 12

Agility: 24

Endurance: 12

Toughness: 9

Vitality: 9

Perception: 18

Magic: 12

Spirit: 6

Soul: 6

Aura: 0

Attunement: 0

Luck: 0

 

Requirements:

Early grade Law Egg of Rain, at least one Rare or higher martial category skill, Agility and Perception greater than 24

 

He’d also found his younger sister, Uliana, who now had an Uncommon class similar to his just called Ranger, and they had formed a group with two other previously unaligned talents. There was Benido, an Uncommon grade Barrier Mage, for added protection and his brother Conido, an Uncommon grade Axe Warrior, as their frontline.

After the tutorial, the four of them had been deposited into what used to be known as the Forest of the Ashen Mistress before the integration, on behalf of the dormant nearby volcano. And, for the last seven days, they’d been looking around for a good spot for Roland to use his reward for having the highest rank of all those in the tutorial with a noble category skill, a Legendary grade Token of Sanctuary.

They’d just found the area’s largest city, Eshna, which before the integration housed around 50,000, and Roland was seriously considering claiming the area. Then, though, they got lucky. Around the time they confirmed there were still over 30,000 people living in the city, they got a quest notification.

 

You have entered the area of a quest.

 

Hunt Down Hira’s Monster Lord (Legendary)

 

Accomplish the following:

1. Either kill or permanently subjugate the monster lord Heavenly Spark Soul King
2. Either kill or permanently subjugate the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s chamberlain, the Mistress of Oaths and Deception

 

You may share this quest with a party of up to 144, but a Party Leader must be selected.

 

Party Leader Rewards for Ending the Threat of the Heavenly Spark Soul King:

One choice of F rank skill orb up to Legendary grade

One choice of F rank artifact up to Legendary grade

 

Individual Rewards for Ending the Threat of the Heavenly Spark Soul King:

All stats +6

 

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Party Leader Rewards for Ending the Threat of the Mistress of Oaths and Deception:

One choice of F rank skill orb up to Epic grade

One choice of F rank artifact up to Epic grade

 

Individual Rewards for Ending the Threat of the Mistress of Oaths and Deception:

All stats +3

 

Do you accept?

Yes/No

 

They of course all accepted, setting up Roland as the party leader. Then they looked around the city, careful in case there were rebels or members of the Imperial Generals faction around.

They quickly learned the city was under the command of a powerful cultivator, the hundred or so people who’d returned from the tutorial in the city all under her command, and they were noticed by the other cultivators and invited to meet her.

“Who is this woman?” Uliana asked the cultivator guiding them through the town hall. “Is she part of one of the factions?”

Most people, even the cultivators who had been in the tutorial, didn’t know Roland or Uliana’s faces, so, like usual, they were pretending to be a normal party rather than the lead party of the royal faction.

“No one knows.” The cultivator, a middle-aged man with graying hair, but fit from exercise, seemed rather excited. “But she’s powerful. When she first came four days ago several cultivators challenged her, but she beat them unconscious with her bare fists. Then she healed them, not with a skill, but with pure qi control, like nothing I saw during the tutorial.

“She forced them to sign a contract, created by some skill of hers, and from then on they were basically her slaves.” The man smiled. “Three of the bunch were even former nobles, like you and the young master.”

The man was of commoner stock, skin not as dark as those usually found in the nobility, but darker than most slaves, and, like most commoners, his view of the nobility after the events of the last several years wasn’t that favorable, though he was still polite.

“The rest of us were forced to sign contracts as well, but the terms weren’t as bad. We just have to help defend the normals if the settlement is attacked, with the temporary loss of 80% of our stats for 24 days if we don’t. And we can’t attack the leader or take any actions to knowingly hurt her without our souls crumbling.”

“That seems kind of harsh.” Conido unconsciously put his hand to the axe hanging from his belt.

“Maybe,” the cultivator conceded as they entered the hallway to the town mayor’s office. “But it seems reasonable to me. The lass is really pretty and I could see quite a few cultivators trying to attack her later if she didn’t put such protections in place.”

The cultivator opened the door for them and they headed in to find the leader of Eshna behind a large wooden desk, putting the final touches on some document.

Pretty was an understatement. The woman had dark eyes and hair, rare for someone with the skin tone of a slave, and, as she stood, Roland could see she had the type of figure he’d only ever seen on a few of the woman who’d been forced to work in his father’s bedchamber.

She was wearing a simple blue dress, obviously an artifact of some kind, and on her ears were two grayish-green dragons, though they didn’t seem to be an artifact, Roland’s aura senses not reacting at all.

He was about to greet her, but then Uliana started yelling. “Roland, she’s a—”

His little sister got cut off by the beautiful woman exploding into action. She kicked the desk she was behind right at Conido and Benido before they could react, the desk hitting Conido first and with quite a bit more force, but knocking both men into the wall. Then the woman disappeared.

It wasn’t like she teleported. For a brief second, Roland’s empowered senses just couldn’t find her. And, the next thing he knew, she was standing between him and Uliana, a grayish-green spear in her right hand, the tip at Uliana’s throat. In her left hand was the sword he’d been in the process of drawing, glowing with a blue light, its tip right at his jugular, and, most terrifying of all, the woman had released her aura. It filled the entire room, squashing down the auras of his party members with a level of power and control they couldn’t hope to match.

“Samial.” The woman smiled at the cultivator who’d brought them into the room, who looked almost as shocked as Roland felt. “Would you be a dear and close the door? The princess here has noticed something she shouldn’t have and I’m afraid all of you will need to sign a further contract or I’ll sadly have to kill you.”

As the cultivator closed the door and took a few steps to the other side of the room, Roland belatedly noticed a few things. First, the woman’s earrings were gone, seemingly having transformed into the spear in her right hand, so it was definitely an artifact, but the fact his senses still couldn’t recognize it as one meant it was of a very high grade. Second, the sword she’d stolen from him was glowing blue, something it only did when a water element Law Egg was channeled into it, so, combined with whatever Law she’d used to escape his senses, she had at least two Law Eggs, placing her above anyone from the tutorial. Third, and most concerning, she’d figured out their identities, probably from Uliana saying his name.

“Who are you?” he almost whispered.

“She’s a monster, Roland,” Uliana growled, glaring daggers at the woman. “I used identify on her and it said she’s the Mistress of Oaths and Deception. Also, she’s only G rank. We can easily take her.”

The woman just stood there and smiled, but the next second Roland saw what looked like her twin behind Uliana. Then, as he realized the Mistress of Oaths and Deception in front of him didn’t look quite as pretty, the Mistress behind Uliana, who was wearing the two dragon earrings again, grabbed his little sister’s arms and yanked. There was a muffled popping sound to Roland’s enhanced perception, and the Mistress behind Uliana disappeared.

“Now, Prince Roland Raphaiya of Hira, what will you choose?” The Mistress of Oaths and Deception holding his own sword to his throat disappeared as well, and he could see what he assumed to be the woman’s true form again, sitting calmly on the chair which had been behind the desk, one leg over the other, calmly tossing his sword with her left hand and effortlessly catching it each time. “Will you attack me and die for your troubles or will we have a pleasant conversation?”

Roland looked at his sister, who had fallen to her knees and was screaming in pain, then at Conido and Benido, who were trying to stand after pushing the desk back. From the looks of it, the woman in front of him, the monster, could have killed them all effortlessly, but she hadn’t.

Likely, she wanted to enslave them like she had the others who’d challenged her, but it wasn’t like he had a better option.

“What do you want?”

“To grow powerful enough to get back to my home world.” The woman smiled at him and he felt a slight stirring in his pants, despite how utterly terrified he was. “I want to hunt down and murder those responsible for killing me.”

“Killing you?” Roland was confused, but he wasn’t so politically unskilled to not see she was deliberately leading the conversation. Still, the weirdness of it meant it was possible this terrifying woman wasn’t an enemy, but, given her title, he probably couldn’t trust anything she said.

“Yes.” The woman tossed the sword back to him and he caught it. “During an apocalypse style integration, everyone on the planet killed 27 standard days before the integration truly starts has their souls protected and taken to a separate tutorial, one where they are turned into monsters at the end and spawned on a different world than their own.

“This is what happened to me and the so called Heavenly Spark Soul King, so, as former humans, we don’t see much purpose in random slaughter.”

As the woman was further away from him than before, he completely missed when she replaced herself with a hologram. So, when she appeared again in front of his sister, her earrings now in the form of a sword pointed directly at Uliana’s throat, everything was over before he even realized it was happening.

“That said, you have accepted a quest to kill me and the man I protect, so, if I don’t have assurances of our safety, I won’t let any of you live.”

 

The Mistress of Oaths and Deception has sent you a contract request.

 

Terms:

1. You may not reveal any secrets about the Mistress of Oaths and Deception or the Heavenly Spark Soul King to anyone for any reason
2. You may not take any actions with the intention to harm the Mistress of Oaths and Deception or the Heavenly Spark Soul King
3. You must accept a slave contract with the Heavenly Spark Soul King
4. You must convince the other non-monsters in the room to accept the contracts the Mistress of Oaths and Deception offers them

 

Punishment:

Death

 

Do you accept?

Yes/No

 

“Accept the contract within twelve breaths, or I will kill your sister.”

Roland struggled with himself for a few seconds. He didn’t want to give up his dreams of uniting Hira. He didn’t want to become someone’s slave. At the same time, though, he didn’t want to die, and he didn’t want Uliana to die either. But the woman, the monster, wasn’t giving him much of an option.

Reluctantly, he accepted.

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