Rating Zero (Alpha LitRPG Book 5), page 32
Dors stood in front of us, giving me the hairy eyeball for a few seconds before opening his arrogant mouth.
“I just caught the last few words of your conversation about those abundant hunting grounds. That’s where we’re going too. But we won’t have anyone who’s ashamed of his own name with us. So you punks stay here.”
The “name” barb was clearly aimed at me. But it wasn’t much of a barb. Calling a nobleman a punk, on the other hand, qualified as mortal insult. Had Dors been blessed with a little more brain power than a canary, he would know that even a much lesser slight could easily lead to a centuries-long vendetta. But his mental acuity was what it was, and the word had indeed been uttered.
I smiled, trying to look perfectly genial.
“Yeah, I remember they called the deaf-mute stable hand who knocked up your mother a punk. But, Dors, I’m not your father, so I’d rather you didn’t refer to me that way.”
Dors’ coterie, which had already started to giggle at their leader’s witticisms, shut up at once. Some of them may have been entertained by my repartee, but they didn’t have the guts to show it.
Dors grew red as a beet, raised his hand, and nearly drove his index finger into my chest as he barked,
“An affront to the family! That means a duel! Right now!”
“Dors, chill…” Ogron started.
Without turning his way, the irate oaf growled through clenched teeth.
“You stay out of it if you value the lives of your stinky family. Chuck, or whatever your name is! I challenge you to a duel! A sword duel!”
I shook my head and let out a patronizing chuckle.
“Dors, do you ever use your head for anything other than chewing? Duels are forbidden by the school. You’ve seen what happened to those who had failed to pick up as much. At least four students got expelled for that.”
“So you’re afraid of getting expelled too, you punk?” Dors grimaced.
I shook my head again.
“My mother is no commoner, and my father wasn’t a stable hand. When I give my word, it’s a nobleman’s word. You have forgotten your first day at school, of course, but I have enough brains in my head to remember that we have all given the word to uphold the rules of the Steel Palace. Duels are forbidden, so if I accept your challenge, I will go back on my word, which is inconceivable to any noble. Besides, you’re a nincompoop. I’m not insulting you. I’m merely stating a fact, just as I did in case of your deplorable pedigree. You have challenged me and chosen the weapon at the same time. This is a flagrant breach of the duel code. Sir Zadar of House Gmay ripped his heart out of his chest and gave it to his opponent before falling down dead for a mistake like that. Oh, and what concerns affronts to the family, I’m afraid you can’t play that card for a number of reasons. For example, you were the first one to use insults in your speech. You may have been unaware that they were insulting, being as bright as you are, but in that case you should not think I have disrespected your family. All I did was give your own words back to you. You have doubted my nobility publicly many times after you failed to learn my identity. But you’re forgetting the most important thing. Nobility is more than pedigree. It is a code of behavior as well. You behave like a commoner, not like a noble. Therefore, you are unworthy of a noble duel. And, of course, a commoner like you has no right to choose the hunting grounds for me and my companions.”
As Dors clenched his fists, his fingers popped loudly.
“You… Why, you… Chaos take you, Chuck! You yap too much! You’re a coward and you refused to fight! Everybody heard that!”
I just chuckled with all the smugness I could muster.
“If you’re spoiling for a fight that much, you can just attack me like a brigand. It won’t be a duel, of course, but I don’t recollect anything about such behavior being forbidden.”
“It will be a case of one student attacking another,” Ogron grinned. “Dors, your family will be really grateful to you when they find out you have gotten them into a feud with the Emperor’s clan.”
“That’s true,” Tsass nodded. “An attack on a student is an attack on the Emperor. That’s how it works.”
Holding my hands deliberately behind my back, I looked at Dors with a mocking grin, knowing full well that he wouldn’t dare start a fight, even with a brain as rudimentary as his.
“So why are you just standing there?” I asked. “I’m right in front of you. Feel free to attack. Oh, what’s the matter now, kiddo? Changed your mind? So which one of us is the coward now? But don’t let it bring you down. I’m a real aristocrat, you see, and I’m bored. There are no serious challenges for me here at the Amphitheater. And I’ll deign to give you a chance to demonstrate your alleged superiority. It’s not much of a chance, but it’s still a great honor to a commoner like you. See that tower in the distance? It’s the tallest building out there, so you won’t miss it. In my boundless kindness, I will offer you a simple race. Whoever gets to the top of the tower first wins. The winner’s party will hunt right here, near the second entrance. The one who loses heads for the seventh with its paucity of prey and its difficult terrain. It’s fair and it’s by the rules. I’m not suggesting something as banal as a fight, and I offer a reasonable prize. If that scares you, why, you’re free to decline and stop wasting my time.”
“It’s the Gray Tower,” a voice said from the back of Dors’ clique. “Not a good place. There’s a lot of Mist around, and the haze there is too thick. It’s too dangerous.”
The door we had all entered through was seeing a lot of additional traffic, I thought to myself. People kept coming out. The following moment, all of us turned around and stared at an unassuming-looking stranger. He seemed to be a little over thirty, wore sensible clothes, and sported well-worn kit resembling ours.
“Are you a hunter?” Tsass asked.
“I am Gub of House Tavor,” the man introduced himself. “I am the Emperor’s soldier, and His Imperial Majesty has bestowed the great honor of twelve visits to the Labyrinth upon me. This is my ninth time, and I most insistently recommend you choose something closer than the Gray Tower. It will take at least an hour to reach even under the most favorable conditions. It’s just a piece of advice, gentlemen. But it’s sound advice, don’t you doubt it.”
“I’ll get there in half an hour or less,” Dors claimed looking as full of himself as any peacock.
That stood to reason: he regularly got points for being a good runner. But he was so incapable of seeing anything other than himself that he failed to notice that many masters favored him undeservedly.
As for me, I got my points fairly. Besides, I often held back instead of going all out. This was why I often lost to opponents far weaker than me. Moreover, I had been studying the Labyrinth for over a year, and not just two weeks. And I studied it in enough detail to need no map at all. I knew the map of the central part like the back of my hand. And I also knew that a direct path often wasn’t the shortest where the Labyrinth was concerned.
Dors must have heard as much too. But Dors was Dors—a lot of arrogance and very little gray matter.
* * *
Dors gave me a victorious look over the shoulder and disappeared in an empty window frame. He must have felt elated, seeing how I remained far behind. Instead of hitting the ground running—literally—I started off at a walk. In a regular race, that would be tantamount to losing, but this was by far not a regular race. Dors, on the other hand, set off like a startled hare. To give him his due, he was really fast as he ran along the straight segment of the street. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to match his speed there. Then we both had to make a few detours, as the streets and alleys leading to our destination zigged and zagged. The further we went, the more the route meandered. It was no longer the kind of a straight run favored by the mentally challenged, and Dors had to slow down. He even managed to get a little lost, which helped me catch up with him. Well, almost. That was when the big guy picked himself up again and decided to take a shortcut to reopen the gap. Instead of following the curve of another side street, he quickly climbed to the second floor of an almost intact nondescript building and, judging by his triumphant yell, found a way to the other side.
For all I cared, he could run all he wanted and take all the shortcuts in the world. Soon enough, he’d run into the kind of obstacles he’d have to smash through with his forehead. I wondered about the strength of a skull without a brain and whether it would help him get to his destination.
Watching his antics, I shook my head and turned around to follow the most secure path, which was nowhere near the shortest. Then I froze, catching something unusual out of the corner of my eye. There was a strange shimmer in one of the windows of the building that Dors had entered with such thoughtless abandon. The day was nowhere near sunny, if there even was such a thing here as direct sunlight. This place was not unlike the underwater passage and the shard of a Life world I had visited with Master Tao—a special location outside of the regular macrocosm where the fabric of Rock meshed with that of alien worlds. What I saw was definitely not a flicker of the nonexistent sun. Dors must have stirred something up in this eternal foggy grayness with all his stomping. Of was it someone?
For the most part, it was the things inhabiting the Labyrinth that made it dangerous. Some of them were regular Rock creatures that had mutated over the centuries of exposure to alien worlds. However, most of them were truly alien life forms that kept to Mist-covered areas but could still move far enough away from them. There were also phenomena known as traps—magical objects in various stages of disrepair. Some were harmless, others extremely dangerous, and nearly all of them unpredictable. The ones near the exits have been neutralized or mapped, but the further away you got, the more risk you faced.
Besides, in this place, you could run into anything any time. Anywhere I looked, using the special seeing technique I had learned from Master Tao, I noticed whirlpools of alien energy flows. Ancient scientists had lived and worked here for hundreds and even thousands of years, and they had the kind of capabilities at their fingertips modern-day doyens would gladly kill for. At best, the latter could hope to discern but pitiful fragments of the old wisdom. For the most part though, their knowledge of that ancient heritage was limited to nonexistent.
We had been warned that although the Amphitheater was mostly a low-danger zone, it was by no means completely safe. You had to watch your back even near the exits. I was fully aware of that as I approached the strange glint. I drew my sword and took out my vial of that special oil, using my thumb and index finger to smear some of the viscous liquid over the edges of the blade. The formula was reliable, but it wore off very quickly. If I kept my blade well oiled all the time, I’d run out before the end of the day, even though I had two extra vials of my own that contained a more expensive and effective variety of the concoction. Indeed, knowing all too well where we were headed, I came prepared in more ways than one.
I would have bought more, but that was all the store had in stock. As it was, the purchase surprised the alchemist a lot. The oil wasn’t cheap; in fact, unlike the standard variety, it cost so much that no reasonable amount of loot one could expect would justify the cost. It was used for serious combat rather than mere hunting, when the fighting was expected to be long and fierce, leaving no time for “recharging” the blade with regular oil. But I spared no expense. I was so flush by that point that penny-pinching made no sense at all.
An elemental emerged from the window. I had never seen those creatures before, but it would be impossible not to recognize one. It was an imperfect sphere of bright yellow flame hovering about a foot above the ground. Its surface was in a constant state of flux; curved spikes of different lengths kept coming out of it, touching whatever surface they could reach and pushing off of it to propel the ball in the desired direction. Some of the “jumps” carried the ball as far as a few yards forward at a time in split seconds.
Intuition:
Small fry.
Intuition could be off occasionally, but I trusted it this time.
The sphere was about two feet in diameter, its appendages shooting three or four feet out. Judging by that, this particular elemental couldn’t be over the fifteenth degree, and most likely not more than ten.
Such small elementals were abundant in the Amphitheater; you could literally run into throngs of them in some places. Judging by the creature’s appearance, the element it represented was Fire, and it must have found it hard to be in a chilly place like this. When finding themselves in a hostile environment, they would often hide in various hollows and hibernate to save their energy. But the moment someone disturbed them, they came out of their slumber, ready for battle in a matter of seconds.
The sphere fell onto the pavement, vigorously pushed off of it, and began jumping from side to side. It paid me no attention; apparently, the creature found it hard to track prey from a long enough distance. Instead, it must have been trying to pick up the scent of whoever had troubled its sleep.
Now I regretted having wasted that expensive alchemy on my sword for small fry like this. I should have tried the bow first. I knew in theory that it could be effective against such foes, but the proof of any pudding, as they said, was in eating. But anyway, since the calf had been fattened, it was now time to slaughter it.
The elemental finally noticed me and even had time to react, growing a few spikes in opposite directions and using them for support as a few more such tremulous tentacles reached forward. It was a sorry sight, truth be told. The creature didn’t even try shooting me from a distance, indicating that, indeed, it could hardly be above level ten.
I dodged easily, sidestepping the spikes and mounting a flanking attack. I did not even bother swinging, and simply slashed the sphere from the top down, at barely half my strength. I chuckled at the nearly forgotten feeling of ORDER sending a tangible reward my way. It only happened in the case of rare or expensive loot earned for the first time ever.
Chapter 22
View From the Top of the Gray Tower
You have dealt significant damage to the lesser water elemental. You have dealt fatal damage to the lesser water elemental. The lesser water elemental is dispelled. You have defeated the lesser water elemental! This is an Elemental creature (Water Power 9). You receive:
Lesser Elemental Mark x1
Lesser Concentrated Mage Energy x1
Personal Water Attribute Embodiment x1
Personal Chaos Talent Mark, Ice Drop x1
Lesser Personal Elemental State Embodiment, Swiftness x1
Water Element Essence, x1
Elemental Symbol, x1
This was already the eighth elemental I had run into and the first one to drop an Element State Embodiment. This could well be because this was my first level nine creature; the ones before them were all under level seven. The very first one, the little ball of fire I overestimated so badly, turned out to be a measly level four.
Powerful opponents were certainly few and far between in the Amphitheater, but I couldn’t say I relished it. Even my abnormally high Measure of Order didn’t result in high loot drops. Had I still been a zero, I would have gotten obscenely rich here in a single day, destroying only the weakest of the elementals. Things were a lot worse now, and the drops became rather meager.
Anyway, I had no reason to grumble since everything had to be put in perspective. I was getting what amounted to generous loot even now. All my competitors were far behind me. Based on prior experience, a regular student would have to slay a few dozen elementals to get a single Elemental Essence—the very thing you needed to present and part with for a ten-point bonus. I already had four, having killed just eight weak elementals. And I wasn’t even hunting yet. I was simply walking towards the Gray Tower and dispatching whatever prey I bumped into along the way.
Actually, I was already running rather than walking, only slowing down to slay an occasional elemental. My opinion of Dors’ abilities was low, but I had to admit that the presumptuous oaf was well-endowed in terms of strength and stubbornness. His kind would indeed head-butt a wall to get it out of the way, so, perhaps, the obstacles he encountered wouldn’t be as formidable as I believed.
One thing I was certain of was that he’d have to make a detour around the amphitheater—the actual structure the sector got its name from, not the entire location. The building itself was a truly colossal local landmark, the biggest by far of all the others, and clearly dominated the skyline of the abandoned city’s center. Though its walls weren’t exceedingly tall—only around two hundred feet or so——they leaned outwards, hanging over the nearby streets in a kind of a makeshift canopy. Even if you were an experienced climber, scaling such an angular wall of smooth stone would be incredibly hard. Therefore, Dors would probably try one of the entrances—and run into a very unpleasant surprise in the form of an enormous trap. It was unlikely to kill him, but he’d definitely waste quite some time extricating himself from it.
Even if he had enough good sense not to try anything like that, he’d have to find a detour, which would be hard; the amphitheater was about half a mile long and had two labyrinths-inside-the-Labyrinth on both sides where there was little space for maneuvering and an abundance of elementals. They also needed to make detours around the colossal obstacle as they migrated, so Dors would run into a few dozen of those aggressive creatures.
