??? time, ??? Hero POV:

“Stand up!”

Bamm!”

“I SAID STAND UP!”

The wooden sword fell on my back again, making me gasp for air.

Moaning in pain, I stood up again only to be punched in the face, making me fall once more.

“Tch, what a piece of garbage! Bring me the next one!”

Something fell on my bare body; he probably spit on me again and I was dragged away by the other guards who just enjoyed the show.

Ever since we were here, they just kept on abusing us.

At the crack of dawn, they would take us out of our cells, to throw us into a big iron cage.

Once everyone was in it, they would take us out one by one, to be chained and be beaten.

They tell us to fight but we can’t even move in those heavy things, not to mention the new special collars they outfitted us.

These things could disturb our mana balance, making us unable to use our superpowers. k

Once we are unconscious, they would drag us back into the cage so the next one can take our place.

This lasted till night, then they would throw us back into our cells, with a little amount of food.

Or at least that happened to most of us.

Some girls would get …’ extra activities.’

I have no idea what that meant but, when I saw them in the morning, they had blank stares, some not even reacting to being beaten.

And there were those who were just gone.

No idea where they were taken, but it couldn’t be good.

Once I finally managed to hiss myself up, I saw something new.

A new bunch of guards pushed another cage near us, this one was the same size as ours and was covered by a black sheet of fabric.

“It’s here already? Damn I want to even finish with these bunch. Tch, bring them up and wake those lazy ones up.”

Once again, they dragged us out and those who couldn’t move, including me, were splashed with some green liquid, which healed our bodies enough for us to sit up.

When the last of us was in the state of being able to listen, the general came before us.

“Listen here you bunch of vermin! Our king has decided that you useless bunch should have a taste of what is waiting for you in the future!”

At his signal, the knights took off the sheet, revealing the thing hidden beneath it.

Somebody screamed, maybe it was me, but I was sure to hear it.

The thing in the cage was hideous beyond description.

it was vaguely humanoid, entirely made out of bones and green flesh.

As it turned towards us, I could see the lack of any facial features, only having a giant mouth filled with broken bones.

As it hissed at us, an electric shock hit it emanating from the cage itself.

“We call these guys the Infected. This happens when somebody catches the Mold Disease and isn’t treated in time. And you guys are going to be the ones who are going to get rid of it.”

What? We are going to get rid of it?! Are they crazy?

“Hehehe, why not give them a taste, right guys?”

The other guards laughed, one of them even grabbed the weakest amongst us and threw him like a sack at the feet of the captain.

“Listen brats, this is what will happen to you if you keep on whining!”

With firm hands, he grabbed the throat of the kid and with his other hand pushed the kid's left arm into the cage.

The monster, not wasting a second leaned forward and bit into the tender flesh.

It was just horrible.

Screams and blood splattering everywhere, accompanied by the sound of chewing.

When the captain threw the boy on the ground, his upper arm was missing, the wound spraying his blood like a fountain.

Yet, this wasn’t over.

Before our eyes, the boy started to transform.

From the wound, some sort of green mold started to grow.

As he screamed, the mold tore his body apart before our eyes, rearranging it into something hideous.

“Inferno.”

With a snap of his finger, the commander incinerated the monster into ash, by setting it ablaze.

“I hope you useless loot understands your place.”

Maybe they knew that we were no longer in any state of training, they dragged us back to our cells and locked us up.

Laying on the dirty dark floor, I slowly felt my mind drift away, maybe wanting to just disappear so that I wouldn’t be tortured again.

I don’t…I don’t want to die.

Even after all the things which happened to me, I didn’t want to expire.

‘…You seem to be in a rough predicament.’

From the ground next to me something grew out.

It looked like a small sunflower, from which a paper card had grown out.

‘Take it. And be free.’

Slowly I grasped at the card, but my strengths left me before I could do anything, my hand limply grasping the air, before losing consciousness.

****

As the ‘hero’ lost consciousness, from the shadows of his cell, a figure came out.

It looked like a small penguin, with a colorful white and purple plumage with a necklace made from small human skulls around its neck.

The bird flapped its wings as it hopped over the unconscious body, and poked the card with its beak, before grabbing it and disappearing.

*****

??? POV:

“Did you bring it?”

Sitting in a well-furnished darkroom, several figures were sitting around a roundtable, which had the small demon standing on it.

The bird flapped its wings, then went to one of the cloaked persons.

It put down the card before the and turned into darkness before them.

The cloaked figure flipped the card, looking at its picture before pushing it aside.

“It’s Ifrit. It seems like that kid is supposed to be the Apostle of Fire.”

“Should we put them with the other cards? “

“Yes, do that. How many does that make? “

“Four, If I remember correctly. The Card of Love, The card of Harvest, The card of Progress and now this one.”

“I need to give credit, Lady War, the idea of using the heroes as bait for the cards was a genius idea.”

One of the cloaked figures, lady Sharon Van Hevensin, flapped her hand, trying to be flattered.

“Please, don’t need to flatter me. I just came up with the idea. Mr. History was the one who permitted me to execute me.”

The one sitting next to Sharon leaned forward, tapping the table with his index.

“Speaking of, did we find the others?”

To answer him, the one sitting in front of him, Mr. History, snapped its fingers, creating a hologram of a map with several red crosses on it.

“Not all of them. We already located Discord and Hatred. Unfortunately, it is on the way to bring them here. Pestilence is still missing ever since he started the Mold Plague. I heard rumors that he joined the Black Thong kingdom, but our scouts haven’t confirmed it yet. As for others, they hide their movements too well.”

Ms. Hatred touched one of the crosses on the map.

“Here., I heard that there was a big fire there recently. Maybe our Fire is there.”

“…All right. Go there and see if it’s there. As for you Discord, continue rising the tension between the different countries. I want them to be on each other’s throats before this era’s demon lord wakes up. Me and Lady War will stay here, continue our work here and take any card that might appear.”

“Speaking of cards.” Sharon slightly raised her hand. “When will the next summoning ceremony happen? We still haven’t got rid of all the previous bunch.”

Mr. History snapped his fingers again, making the map disappear.

“The pig wants the new batch in a month. Plenty of time for us to render these kids completely useless. Now, everyone, it’s time for us to go.”

With a flinch of the wrist, the scenery before the girl changed.

From the dark windows, which display the night sky, the sunshine came in and all the caped individuals were now gone.

“Sigh, Mr. H is quite scary.”

From what he told her, his ability allowed him to bring back past events into the present, allowing these meetings to happen.

It’s been around a while since she joined this group of people.

Ever since then things are slowly evolving in a certain direction.

The destruction of human civilization as it is known right now.

She knew this and as a human herself she should have felt threatened or at least concerned.

Yet she just felt excited.

The others told her that if the dark apostle was a human, then the card would change them a little.

As the Apostle of War, she felt her blood boil imagining the bloodshed that might flow and she couldn’t wait for her sword to taste the horror of war.

‘My lady, there is something we need to report to you.”

From the shadows, another creature appeared.

It looked like the previous penguin, but this one wore a white coat, and a pair of glasses were perched on his beak.

“What is it?”

“We couldn’t complete the request. The suppressant is too strong, it's able to completely neutralize the mold. The only way we managed it to spread again is to inject an ungodly amount of infected water into the subject.”

“…Continue the experiments on the heroes. We will be able to crack this after a while.”

As the penguin disappeared, she sighed.

It’s been a while since they have been working on the mold, weaponizing it. Currently, the only thing they could do was speed up the infection speed and change its color to white.

But she wasn’t discouraged.

This thing had enormous potential as a weapon and when they crack it, then the extermination of the human race would only take a month, tops.

Smiling wieldy, showing her pointy teeth she clashed her fists, releasing a dreadful aura.

“Can’t wait. Can’t wait! Come on humanity, just crumble into chaos already.”

*****

??? POV:

A village deep in the woods, around a week of march away from the Black Thong Kingdom, was in an uproar.

This village, which some would even consider a small city, was inhabited by different races which escaped from. the attacks of the humans.

These refugees were welcomed by the original inhabitants of the forest, the wood elves.

Unlike the other members of their kin, wood elves weren’t immortal, their life spans only lasted for around a thousand years, but instead, they busted with different attributes. They had more physical strengths than any elves, and their evolutionary path didn’t require any radical changes which most elves go through.

And the cause of this uproar was exactly one of those elves.

Perched on the top of a tall house. a young high wood elf was looking at the chaos he did while mashing on a red apple.

He had brown skin and hair, his eyes slightly glowing in a green light, as two antlers had grown out from the side of his head.

Showing his high status his face was painted with tribal markings. A white line ran from his ear to ear, passing through his nose. Three spheres were painted on his forehead one under the other which ended with a rectangle, and on his chin was another rectangle which was divided into three parts.

Under him, several merchants were arguing with each other, some even resulting in grabbing their throats or drawing out their own weapons.

“YOU STOLE FROM ME!”

“ARE YOU AN IDIOT?! YOU WERE THE ONE WHO WAS STEALING FROM ME!”

“WHY IS MY PRODUCT ON YOUR STAL?”

“YOU SCAM, I WILL BREAK YOUR NOSE!”

The elf, called Laudden, smiled at the show.

All he did was take random stuff from the merchants and put them on the stalls of other merchants, causing this.

“Idiots.”

He didn’t hide his presence or use a skill. He just walked up to them, took the stuff, and went away.

He wasn’t special.

He was lucky.

He went to the stalls when they were busy with something else not noticing him.

Ever since he was born a couple of hundred years ago, he has been especially lucky. Whatever he touched, whatever he did, the development became beneficial for him, no matter if he knew what he was doing, Except for magic.

With only a slim amount of 12 MP, he wasn’t able to use any spells, not even the weaker ones.

Being born from a family of mages made this kind of a sore spot for him, so to distract himself, he started to play these little tricks on these guys.

“Sigh, this is starting to become quite a stall. Time to hit the casino.”

Throwing away the half-eaten apple, Laudden jumped over to the other house and kept on leaping, till he reached the dirtier parts of the town.

As he fell on the muddied backstreets of the village, he checked his statues on a whim.

[

Name: Laudden

Race: [High Wood Elf] lv:30:1000(345/1000)

Main Class: [Merchant]

Sub Class: [Gambler]

HP(Health Points): 60/60

SP(Stamina Points): 30

MP(Magic Points): 12/12

Active Skills: [Appraisal] [Haggling [Steady Hand] [Card Control]]

Skills: [Merchants Guts] [Price Sense] [Danger Sense] [Alcohol Tolerance]

]

“Still the same. Still the same.”

He didn’t know why he had the class of a merchant. He didn’t even live in the city, he just wandered in the forests and stopped by any village to buy stuff and do some pranks.

“Come one, come all! Spine the wheel if you dare! Who feels lucky today!”

On the way to the casino, he saw something interesting.

A woman standing on a crate was shouting, with a strange wheel behind her.

She wore the cloth of a male aristocrat, blue silk pants and west decorated with golden lines and patterns, with her eyes hidden behind by a black bandana.

Even as she yelled, the passer-by didn’t react to her, they passed by her as if she didn’t exist.

“YOU!”

As Laudden passed before her, she jumped on the muddy ground with her exquisite boot and blocked his way.

“Do you dare spin my wheel of fortune? If you feel lucky and win, the top prize is something that is worth a thousand gold coins!”

He stared at the woman rather than at the wheel, which he noticed was split into several parts, each colored with a different shade of blue and red.

“…How much?”

The woman smiled as she nagged him towards the wheel.

“You are my first contestant today, so this spin is free! Come on, just grab its side and spin it!”

Following her advice, he grabbed the construct and made it spin with all his force.

Surprisingly, it spun rather smoothly, then as it slowly stopped something happened.

The wheel suddenly started to shine in a green bright light, blinding him.

“Fuck!”

When he opened his eyes, there was no wheel or woman but instead a shabby wooden table which had a small card on it, strange patterns on its back.

Feeling some sort of pull, he slowly turned the card, showing the drawing on it.

The picture showed the beautiful blue sky with a horn-shaped basket flying with golden wings, filled with golden coins.

At the bottom of the card, there was a name written in beautifully golden ink.

TYCHE.

As he read the name, the wings on the basket started to move.

“What the…”

In fright, Laudden dropped the card on the ground.

The second the card left its head, the card flew over his head, pouring a shower of gold coins over his head.

As he tried to escape, the words of the world formed in his mind.

[Congratulations.]

[You received unique Title: [Blessed by the Abundance]]

[Class [Merchant] been changed into subclass]

[Class been set as [Great Gambler]

[You received a Blessing.]

[Blessing have been added to the status window.]

[Current Blessing:[ Blessing of Tyche]

[[Affinities been added to the status window]

[You received affinities: [Luck Affinity] [Wealth Affinity]

[You received skills: [Snake Eyes] [ Coin of Fate]

[MP been converted into Luck]

[Current Luck: 540/540]

[You are now being observed by [Light] and [Dark]]

*

*

*

[

Name: Laudden

Race: [High Wood Elf] lv:30:1000(345/1000)

Main Class: [Great Gambler]

Sub Class: [Merchant]

HP(Health Points): 60/60

SP(Stamina Points): 30

Luck: 540/540

Blessings: [ Blessing of Tyche]

Active Skills: [Appraisal] [Haggling [Steady Hand] [Card Control]]

Passive Skills: [Merchants Guts] [Price Sense] [Danger Sense] [Alcohol Tolerance]

Affinity: [Luck Affinity] [Wealth Affinity]

Titles: [Blessed by the Abundance]]

]

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Mythology of Tyche

In Greek religion, the goddess of chance, with whom the Roman Fortuna was later identified, a capricious dispenser of good and ill fortune. The Greek poet Hesiod called her the daughter of the Titan Oceanus and his consort Tethys; other writers attributed her fatherhood to Zeus, the supreme god. She was also associated with the more beneficent Agathos Daimon, a good spirit, protective of individuals and families, and with Nemesis, who, as an abstraction, represented punishment of overprosperous man and so was believed to act as a moderating influence. She was often shown winged, wearing a crown, and bearing a sceptre and cornucopia; but she also appeared blindfolded and with various devices signifying uncertainty and risk. Among her monuments was a temple at Argos, where the legendary Palamedes is said to have dedicated to her the first set of dice, which he is supposed to have invented.