Rebirth: Rise of the Slave Master

Chapter Eighteen: Two Steps Back

A roaring [Strike] glittered under the evening sun, crashing to the earth with a stone-shattering rumble. The attack sent a number of sharp rocks flickering out like meteoric shrapnel. The [Carrion Bird] squawked as several projectiles connected with its wings, causing it to take a sudden turn downward. As it tumbled through the sky, the player who had activated [Strike] reversed their grip and flung their oversized sword into the sky.

It struck the off balance [Carrion Bird] and dealt a brutal Critical Hit to the beast’s underside. The bald-headed, filth riddled bird was flung into the air before quickly returning to the ground with a soft thud.

The powerfully-built warrior lifted her great sword with a triumphant yell.

“HA!”

Her large frame and stern features seemed at odds with her bubbly response, as she drove the weapon into the paralyzed monster.

[Strike]

-123

As she hit with her final attack, the [Carrion Bird] exhaled for the last time and the swordswoman was encased in an aura of golden light. Level up!

A wave of euphoria washed over Tanya as her confidence filled to the brim. She could at last take out a [Carrion Bird] by herself, and she even reached level 6 in the process. It was normally considered quite difficult for a heavy sword wielder to fight against flying monsters.

“Huhuhu… just you wait Theo, I’ll catch up to you in no time!” there was a scary look in her eyes as she looted the body of her most recent kill.

After the humiliating incident with the current highest-level player in the game, and her many ignored messages, a certain obsession had crept its way into the woman’s life. A powerful drive to crush the handsome face of the man she hadn’t been able defeat had transformed Tanya’s evening hobby into a matter of pride.

Tanya allocated her new attribute points and happily inspected her character profile.

Character Information Name: Tanya (6) HP: 330/330 Race: Human MP: 290/280 Class: Novice Attack: 69~84 Alignment: Good Defense: 5 (8%) Attributes and Runes Strength: 29 (+0) Head Rune: Novice Head Rune Agility: 5 (+0) Heart Rune: Novice Heart Rune Intelligence: 5 (+0) Core Rune: Novice Core Rune Constitution: 23 (+0) Rune Locked Empty Willpower: 11 (+0) Rune Locked Empty Charisma: 17 (+0) Rune Locked Empty Luck: 8 (+0) Rune Locked Empty Skill List Skill Name Level Exp. to Next Lv. Tag Beginner Conditioning Lv. 6 17%/100% * Beginner Heavy Sword Mastery Lv. 4 44%/100% * Beginner Meditation Lv. 5 39%/100% * Beginner Persuasion Lv. 3 16%/100% * Beginner Rune Mastery Lv. 3 7%/100% * Dodge Lv. 3 31%/100% * Perception Lv. 3 22%/100% * Stealth Lv. 3 16%/100% * Strike Lv. 1 92%/100% *

Tanya was glowing with vitality as she hoisted the heavy sword and turned to find her next unsuspecting target. Although she had just leveled up, there was no reason she couldn’t take down a few more of these [Carrion Bird]s before moving on. They gave out good experience when you weren’t forced to fight them with a group.

As she scanned the horizon, a small object poked out of a nearby pile of large, sandstone boulders. It seemed to be some kind of skull, and if it wasn't actively moving, she didn’t think she would have seen it at all. It bobbed up and down slowly, as if purposely trying to attract her attention.

“Is it a new kind of monster?” Tanya thought, readying her sword.

She had become far more familiar with the level of difficulty in this game over the last week, and after reading some of the horror stories from players in other cities, she wasn’t going to drop her guard for a second. What might look at first like a cuddly forest pal could actually be a vicious beast in disguise! Tanya began to take cautious steps in the direction of the foreign object.

“Kee?”

The object made a strange noise as it rose into the air. Bits of metal and coin hung from cords that were wrapped around horns protruding from either side, and the whole thing was mounted on a gnarled branch being held aloft by four tiny green fingers.

A green, hairless face followed in the wake of the staff. It had two yellow eyes the size of acorns that adorned a head that seemed too large for its tiny body. Its nose was equally out of proportion, and a pair of large floppy ears dangled from the sides of its oblong skull. Both were pierced with various bone ornaments that clacked when it moved. The creature had a human like body, with a round little torso and unnaturally skinny limbs. Its total height was about one meter, and it was wearing a patchy, burned robe.

“That is?” Tanya activated her [Perception].

[Goblin]

“Goblin? Like the weak little trash monster? Huhuhu…” a rather Theo-like grin crept across Tanya’s face as she spotted her newest target.

The Goblin had clearly taken notice of her, and regarded her with a curious expression. Tanya wielded the massive slab of iron that was her weapon and carefully got into position. She would have loved to learn a skill which let her charge at the target before an attack, because it just didn’t feel as awesome when you had to walk up to the monsters and crack them over the head.

The green faced creature then did something Tanya couldn’t have expected. It smiled a sharp-toothed grin and stuck out its tongue. Why did this creature’s appearance remind her of that devil-faced bastard somehow? It even started mumbling something under its breath.

“You little! Eat sword!” Tanya stomped up the rockpile after the Goblin and took a swing at it.

Contrary to the scene she had imagined, Tanya’s quarry scurried away before the blade even came close. She had never faced any of the more intelligent monsters in the game, and the surprise maneuver was entirely unexpected. The great sword crashed into the pile of rocks with a bang, and Tanya was carried forward by the heavy weapon’s momentum.

It took all of her strength to right herself.

It was at that moment that a strange green light shot forth from the Goblin’s staff. It flew towards her with a blinding speed, changing shape to take the form of a thin ring. It passed through her chest and wrapped around her, tightening in the process. She was overcome with a sickening, twisting sensation in her bones, and her legs felt as if they were stuck in an invisible quagmire.

You have received spell [Bogwarp]... Movement speed reduced by 30% for 30 seconds.

“M-magic!” Tanya squeaked in surprise at the sudden debuff.

A morbid heaviness embraced her person as she struggled to adapt to her body’s strange new slowness. After all the time it took to grow accustomed to her character's alternate height and weight, Tanya realized she had zero experience moving when under a condition like this.

Sharpening her senses for an incoming attack, Tanya heard more strange words she didn’t understand pouring from the Goblin’s mouth. Was it another magical spell? When she tried to crane her neck, it was like doing so against a pounding gale.

The warrior looked up just in time to see the Goblin’s wind-up before it flung a ball of fire in her direction. She didn’t even have a chance to dodge before the soft-ball sized orb crashed into her chest and exploded outward in all directions.The HP that had been completely refilled after her level up was immediately reduced to 0 from the direct hit, and her avatar scattered into a number of red particles. Everything went black, and when she regained her sight, Tanya was standing around the town square in Oasis.

“What… what just happened?”

Back at the location of the ‘battle,’ Gobthnora kicked over a stone that had been charred black by her [Fireball]. Sitting next to it was a completely unrecognizable human corpse that was still softly smoldering.

“Keh… Master was right, the humies are very dumb. Stupid humie can’t even tell how mighty Gobbo Shaman is!” after pilfering the corpse, she let out a putrid little exasperation, “Didn’t leave any presents behind for master!”

In frustration, the shaman beat the deceased Tanya with her staff for a good minute.

As a way to increase productivity, Theo had set the Goblin to what he conveniently called ‘autoloot.’ After discovering Gobthnora’s affluence of Evil and realizing that he wouldn’t have to worry about her actions affecting him negatively as long as he wasn’t forcing her to do it, he came up with a plan to keep the shaman busy while he was beginning Meatshield’s training.

Theo would have the relatively high level Gobthnora frequent the more secluded areas where players would go to hunt, and wander around looking for things that could be of value. If he knew anything about those greedy players, they wouldn’t be able to resist attacking the new and fragile-looking monster. Gobthnora’s personality was pretty nasty, so a few well placed suggestions cemented the idea that it was perfectly fine to roast players into ashes if they bothered her.

Of course, since she was there to look for valuables, she would obviously bring back anything the players happen to drop. Just because they didn’t lose any experience for dying in PvP under level 10, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t risk dropping their loot. Weapons and runes weren’t included in this, but if a lucky player managed to find gear they couldn’t equip and carried it around in their inventory, that was perfectly fair game.

“Block!” the butt of Theo’s spear slammed into Meatshield’s shoulder and knocked her off balance before another blow connected with her solar plexus.

The girl stumbled back and stared at her master with an empty look.

Theo still had no idea if she was complaining or not, “Do you think that you can rely on your body to protect you against giants and dragons?” he scolded her, “Dodge the big attacks and block the weak ones!”

“Now dodge!” Theo activated [Lunge] and crashed into Meatshield, who tried and failed to dive out of the way.

Her HP slowly plummeted, but she would be fine after resting near Gobthnora’s [Goblin Campfire]. With her absurd Constitution and the amount of beatings she had taken over the past day, her [Beginner Conditioning] skill was skyrocketing. Theo wouldn’t know how fast the progression was until it upgraded to the next level, but it would likely be enough to shock even him.

After observing her movements for a day and a half, Theo came straight home from his trip to the gym and began to drill the princess on the basics of combat. The girl’s selling point was her incredibly high HP and unique defensive ability. It would be a waste not to take advantage of her talent in this area, and Theo had resolved to maximize her viability as a tank.

The issue was, after watching her various battles, he had roughly calculated her Strength and Agility from her movement speed and damage dealt. The result was that she wasn’t particularly gifted in either of these attributes. Her Willpower was abysmal, and even if it turned out be quite high, her Intelligence was useless without any any MP. Charisma and Luck, on the other hand, were impossible to calculate from combat.

Theo could only assume Charisma was her second highest attribute since she was royalty, but there was no way to take advantage of it with her personality the way it was. At least Strength could be trained up properly and boosted with most combat equipment, and if he could get her a class that allowed her to make use of her Charisma, she had a build that could actually work.

For the time being, he needed to teach her how to balance attack with defense. With a proper shield, and knowledge of how to use it, Theo figured this princess would make a solid defender until monsters started throwing around magic and status effects. After that, he would need to find some way to make up for her terrible mental resistances.

After ‘teaching’ Meatshield for another ten minutes, the haggard woman needed a breather and Theo let her rifle through the mound of food she had collected. It seemed like no matter how much this girl ate, she would always be hungry for more. Was this a side effect of an NPC losing so much HP all of the time, or did it have something to do with her status as a Bolevolo?

The mysteries surrounding Meatshield only seemed to pile up.

After returning his [Steel-Edged Partizan] to the Inventory, Theo held the back of his right hand up to his face. The complex little rune that appeared there was his unique brand and would be applied to all of his slaves in the future. It rose to level 2 following the enslavement of the princess, but after that it refused to budge an inch, even if he tagged it. The system was blocking its progress until he met a certain criteria, much like it did with players who had reached enough experience to hit level 10. One could not cross that line without obtaining a class first, and any proficiencies earned would be void.

Theo had worried that he wouldn’t be able to raise the skill at all without enslaving high profile targets, and became concerned that he had wasted a slot on the easily obtained Gobthnora. His concern wasn’t relieved until Meatshield leveled up for the first time. After grinding up to level 6 last night, Theo finally saw the proficiency of this skill rise, and it increased by an entire 20%. Leveling slaves and enslaving… that made two ways he had found to improve the quality of his brand.

“But what if they’re useless in combat?” Theo mused.

Crafting? Gathering? Entertainment? If the slave didn’t work, the master wouldn’t grow!

“No wonder so many Slave Masters were terrible players in the past,” he let out an exasperated sigh and turned to look at Meatshield, who was gnawing on a piece of [Goblin-Made Vulture Jerky] the shaman had cooked.

Theo honestly couldn’t bring himself to try any of Gobthnora’s cooking, and was again grateful for his ability to go without eating.

Bweep! Bweep!

Theo sat bolt upright at the sudden pinging noise, “An alert? I didn’t set an alarm for now...” his interface responded to his mental commands and pulled up the alerts page, “Ah, phone.”

When Theo received a text message on his mobile phone, he was alerted in the game thanks to a synced account with his Lucid Lock. It was a habit from the days when he communicated with his trainers, sponsors, and contacts from the game frequently. In this life, the feature was doing little more than collecting dust.

The only phone numbers he had were those that he needed for work or family. He had long ago deleted all of the numbers that belonged to his friends back in college, since his past self resolved never to see them again. It was a really childish thing to do, in hindsight. Theo wasn’t sure whether to be filled with pride for how much he had grown over the years or embarrassment at the knowledge of where he had originally come from. It was even more confusing when you threw time travel into the equation.

At first Theo figured it was his little sister sending him a message. She was the kind of kid who would still try to bug him when she got bored. To his disbelief, the name that appeared before him wasn’t “Molly” but “Mary Ann.”

“They’re not trying to get me to come in on Valentine’s day are they? I already quit…” he complained to nobody in particular.

Still watching over the ravenous Meatshield, Theo decided he could spare a few minutes to talk to a former coworker. Mary Ann wasn’t really a frivolous person, and if she was texting him this late, it was more than likely something at least a bit serious.

Mary Ann: [8:43PM] Hey Rick, you live nearby right

Rick: [8:44PM] Nearby you? I don’t think so?

Mary Ann: [8:46PM] Out right now

Mary Ann: [8:46PM] Yeah, you do

Rick: [8:46PM] Where are you? Why do you know my address?

Rick: [8:50PM] Mary Ann?

Mary Ann: [8:51PM] I’ve seen you paid checks

Mary Ann: [8:51PM] Paychecks

Rick: [8:52PM] Are you alright?

Mary Ann: [8:55PM] You’re sweet

Mary Ann: [8:55PM] I’m coming over

Rick: [8:55PM] What do you mean you’re coming over?

Rick: [9:00PM] Mary Ann?

Rick: [9:02PM] Mary Ann?