Chapter 13: Prince and the trip to the forest edge (3)

Iliva woke up to the floral fragrance of the elven tears that filled her nostril canals. She stretched her limbs and quickly found a bouquet of white elven tears and red Cyclamens placed inside her hammock, must have been the work of that liar bug.

What is this? Does that liar bug intend to propose to her with this bouquet? The fool, this is the elf’s and the dark elf’s way of proposal, not Arachne’s. Yet, he just has to pick the elven tears to make this bouquet, this is the flower Iliva hates the most, its color reminds her of her chalky hair and her whitish skin. And on top of that, the Cyclamen of all the flowers he could pick in this forest, it makes her skin red and itchy when she contacts with it spores. It was as if this bouquet was made to mock her appearance.

Iliva put down the bouquet and scanned the camp. She should have killed him last night and rid herself of this lingering pain inside her chest. And yet, she found herself unable to do that. She just stood next to him, watching his sleeping face and could not stab her powerful arachnid leg through his chest. Every time the word “Alice” formed from his lips, she felt like she could do it, raising her scythe-like arachnid leg high, and yet, it came down without touching the liar bug’s chest every single time. In the end, Iliva thought of committing the deed in yet another the day.

After scanning the camp with her eyes, she could not find the liar bug’s presence around the camp. His stuffs were still placed next to the camp fire and he was cooking something inside his cauldron. This was the first time in this trip that the liar bug woke up earlier than Iliva, she mulled and wondered if the lack of wine in his yesterday supper was the reason. She approached the camp fire only to discover that the liar bug was cooking something truly bizarre, his socks and small pants along with all sort of flowers and aromatic herbs inside the cauldron.

Iliva could not comprehend this unholy concoction that the liar bug brewing regarding its nature or purpose. Would the liar bug drink the water from this unholy concoction or did he intend to boil his clothes and eat them afterward? Iliva could not imagine. The liar bug was without a doubt the most bizarre creature Iliva has ever seen.

Where is that liar bug anyway?

Since his stuffs were all here, he could not be far from the camp. Iliva perked her elven ears and trained them for the sound of the liar bug, and she picked up his location without any trouble. Quietly, she walked without stepping on the dried leaves or dead branches on the ground.

He was singing a strange song. Iliva could hear the sound of water from that direction as well. She has guessed that the liar bug was refilling his water supply for the trip from a nearby stream. However, the liar bug was taking a bath in the stream. He was naked, down to his birthday suit, prancing and dancing around in the middle of the flowing stream and singing as he scrubbed the dirt off his body.

It’s only now that Iliva remembered that the liar bug has asked why she smelled so good and yet he never saw her taking bath or anything.

Human and other creatures in this world would develop a bad body odor if they don’t regularly wash themselves. However, Arachne did not have to experience that kind of problem due to side effect of the powerful curse that Niwdar placed on their ancestor.

Her body would heal as long as she lived. Even if her arms were chopped off by the sharpened blades of the elves, even if her legs were bitten off by beasts, even if a spear tore a hole through her stomach, even if her back riddled with arrows, she would heal and eventually she would become whole again, spotless and taintless of scars. Her body would not have dead skin, unless it was burned by the sun or wounded. Her sweat would not smell like any other creatures.

The liar bug just apologized to her after he heard her answer, without explaining why and began to complain that he needed to take a bath as soon as he could.

So this was where he found the elven tears, these flowers would only grow near areas of abundant water like ponds, lakes or streams.

The liar bug was not aware of Iliva’s fervent gaze from afar nor the starving stare of that Menace constrictor approaching him. The liar bug was defenseless and unaware of the danger around him, his strange looking sword laid on the shore of the stream where he hung his clothes.

That Menace constrictor slithered quietly and stealthily, without making a noise or raising any alarm. Its camouflaging scales constantly changed colors to match with the surroundings background as the Menace constrictor approached the liar bug. There was no way that weak liar bug could fend off this giant serpent. The Menace constrictor was the apex predator in this wood, only behind Iliva’s spiders and herself. Its singular combat strength was however greater than even the strongest female spider under Iliva’s command, its hardened scales could fend off the venomous fangs of her spiders and its blood completely neutralized most poisons and venoms. The reason Iliva’s spiders could win against such powerful creatures because they traveled in packs, and they were more intelligent than the serpent.

Iliva tensed her powerful arachnid legs, intended to jump in and intercepted the large serpent. And yet, the question “Why should I?” appeared inside her head. She could not bring herself to kill that liar bug, so why not let that serpent do the job? Let the serpent squeezed and snuffed the life out of that liar bug. After that, she could kill the serpent and took back her pearl from the liar bug.

And Iliva stood, watching the Menace constrictor closed in to the unaware liar bug who was still dancing and singing in the middle of the silver stream. Her heart beat slowed down and Iliva held her breath. It was as if there was a boulder lodged and resided inside her chest, painfully heavy. She did not move, she would not move, why should she move to save that liar bug? He took her most cherished treasure hostage. He lied to her. He made her chest felt like it was stabbed by a thousands of spears every time he muttered the name of his woman. Why should she save someone like that?

Suddenly, the liar bug stopped singing. He grabbed his nape as if he just got a chill. He turned around and scanned his surroundings. His instinct was good for a human, but his senses were not good enough. He looked at the Menace constrictor for more than a second, than turned away, looking at a different direction, searching for something else, he couldn’t distinguish the camouflaged serpent’s figure from those bushy elven tears and forest reed. Unlike Iliva’s excellent elven eyes, the liar bug could not see the serpent with his terrible vision. And that’s why the serpent got the better of him.

It pounced down on the liar bug, swashed him down to the splashing silver stream and coiled its massive body around him to seal off his movement. He shouted and struggled, but that would do nothing to the giant serpent. The serpent overpowered the liar bug, increased the coils it wrapped around his body and just squeezed the life out of him. He struggled with his clawing finger nails and his unsharpened teeth on the constrictor’s body. What was he thinking? Even the venomous fangs of Iliva’s spider could not tear through those scales. The serpent coiled its powerful muscles even further, the liar bug wheezed, he could not even breath now. His face turned red and purple, the veins on his face popped up and he just wheezed for any bit of air to prolong his suffering.

“Mom, dad, FY, Alice,” he just rasped for air, all the blood rushed into his head, and the liar bug ceased to struggle, he resigned himself to the Menace constrictor. Every time the liar bug wheezed, he was a step closer to death.

That scene of the liar bug dying began to blur on Iliva, her eyes scalded hot as if someone has just poured boiling water into her eye sockets and the spears that tearing through her chest only made it worse for her. She gasped for air, her hands clutched at the invisible pain inside her chest as she watched the liar bug breathing his lasts.

And Iliva launched herself into the air with a powerful leap. She bounced toward the liar bug with great strides, her arching powerful spider legs readied to kill the serpent within a single strike.

“What you can do, I can do better,” the liar bug inaudibly wheezed and all of the sudden, Iliva was staring at two Menace constrictors. Iliva could not find the liar bug anywhere.

And the battle began anew, this time serpent pitting against serpent. One tried to lock up the other with its coiling body, the other tried to slither away. And the one that slithered away won, it reached the shore and grabbed hold of the liar bug’s strange sword inside its mouth, coiled its body and came back for the other serpent. That wicked blade flashed. A serpent head rolled through the air and hit the ground, still rolling, dyeing everything it touched in the color of its red gooey blood. Its headless body uncoiled around the sword holding serpent and convulsed, slithered to a stop within the redden stream.

As for the sword holding serpent, it slithered back to the shore and transformed into the liar bug. The liar bug was holding his strange blade inside his mouth. He dropped the blade, buckled to his knees and gasped for air. As he gasped for air, he started to curse.

“Fuck you devs, you either get your sorry ass down here or I will go up and stick Enfermé right up your asses. Get down here. What did you have against me? First corpses, then spiders now snake? Are you out of your fucking mind? This kind of bullcrap is not supposed to be in this game. Get your ugly asses down here or I will sue you,” and he went on cursing, pointing his middle finger up at the sky and did not stop.

He did not see Iliva. She did not think he did either. He went on cursing all the gods and goddesses of Escana and once he was done with that, he moved to the gods whose name Iliva has never heard of like Thor, Odin, Zeus, Morgan Freemon, etc… to name a few. He exhausted himself by cursing. And then when he stopped cursing, he rest and sat down on the shore, staring at the body of the headless serpent. Then his anger flared right up, he cursed the dead serpent until he exhausted himself again.

Iliva decided to approach him. The sound of her footstep made the liar bug scrambled for his blade to take a defensive stance. When he realized that it was her, he dropped the blade. His face flushed red. He wiped away his tears in a hurry and showed Iliva his toothy smile, “Iliva, if only you have come here sooner, I would get to show you my heroic figure when I fought that giant serpent,” the liar bug pointed his thumb at the serpent corpse behind him.

And Iliva could not help but break into a laughing fit, the liar bug was indeed a liar bug. This was the first time and the only time she thought his joke was funny.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As soon as he returned to the camp, Fearless realized that his socks and trousers have caught fire inside the cauldron. He tried to salvage the situation but what’s done was done, his socks and trousers had turned into the ashes along with the aromatic herbs and flowers he used to erase the smell of his sweat.

Fearless’ anger began to consume him whole. That’s damn snake, he cursed inwardly, stood up and went back to the stream where he left that snake corpse behind.

“Where are you going?” Iliva asked.

“I’m bringing back that stupid snake. I will have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner today,” Fearless replied and left with Enfermé in hand. Now that he has learned that in this wood there were creatures that equally terrifying as the Mangora spiders, he would not let his guard down.

Fearless stood where he last saw the serpent and could only shuddered. That damn thing had to be at least fifteen meters in length. Fearless entered the stream and put the dead serpent’s tail on his shoulder, dragging it to the shore or trying to, at least. He immediately found out that he could barely move it. This stupid thing had to be at least over one hundred fifty kilo, or perhaps even two hundreds. In the end, Fearless could never move the damn thing to the shore. He decided to chop it into two with Enfermé and brought back half of the serpent. Even after liberated himself from half of the total weight, Fearless felt completely drained the moment he flopped down next to his camp fire.

“Iliva, I think I’m done for the day. I can’t walk anymore. We are resting today. Are you cool with that?”

“Cool?” Iliva asked, it seemed that that context of the word cool was too modern for the people of this world.

“Do you agree or disagree with me?” and Fearless explained.

“Suit yourself, liar bug,” surprisingly, Iliva agreed with Fearless. He thought she would scream at him and told him to not delay her from getting her pearl back.

“Now, you just give me another strange name,” Fearless sighed. Iliva kept giving him all sort of offensive nicknames, starting with lowly human, then annoying bug and now liar bug. He wondered how many more offensive nicknames he would earn until the day they parted way.

Fearless then turned his attention at the snake, “Iliva, do you have any idea how to cook this snake?”

“Of course, I do,” Iliva regally affirmed in her high and mighty tone.

“Teach me,” and Fearless begged. He had never caught himself a snake, let alone one as big as this. He had no idea how to prepare this thing for a meal.

“Why should I?” Iliva gave an answer that Fearless has half expected.

“I will share the meal with you,” Fearless smiled and offered.

“No, I don’t want to eat that. It’s stink,” Iliva turned away as if she tried to put an end to the discussion.

“Okay, that’s a fair,” Fearless said while thinking, so it’s stink. He decided to eat the damn snake anyway to sate his anger, “How about you get to give me one command, whatever it is I will obey you,” he coaxed.

“Oh?”

And Iliva had that look in her face which immediately prompted Fearless to put more clause to that offer.

“Just don’t tell me to return you the pearl. Or tell me to stop talking to you or stop staring at your sexy body or stop making pass at you… damn it, am I leaving anything else important out?” Fearless considered all of his priorities while scratching the skin on his head.

Iliva closed her ruby eyes, deep in thought and then asked “Who is A…” she never completed that question.

“Who is A?” Fearless repeated that unfinished question, prompting Iliva to finish it.

“Ignore that one. How did you transform into that serpent?” Iliva’s face suddenly turned beet red and she yelled, pointing her finger at Fearless.

“Damn it, you caught me at my most embarrassing moment. No wonder you were laughing so hard back then,” this time, it was Fearless who felt his face heated up. And yet, “Wait, calm down, what are you doing?”

Iliva was using her powerful arachnid legs to chop down the tree stood nearest to her. “None of your concern. Just give me the answer,” she commanded.

“Do you remember that I have told you that the gods have casted a spell on me and I have served them for fourteen years of my life?” Fearless sat down next to the camp fire and asked.

“Yes,”

“They rewarded me for my service, bestowing me with a couple of tricks. Each of those tricks has one thing in common, they were based on my achievement and exploit or some random thing that I was known to do, basically what make me famous,” Fearless sighed, connecting to the illusionary character sheet inside his head again and showing Iliva his right wrist, “Okay, you see this bangle on my right wrist? Can you read the word?”

“What you can do, I can do better.” Iliva read, “What’s about it?”

“I got this bangle by participating in a war against one of the worst opponent I had to face throughout my career. And these words, they are his catch phrase. He was an ultimate being created for war. Also, this opponent I fought is not a human nor he is an elf nor dark elf nor dwarf, he is an AI,” Fearless flicked the platinum bangle with his fore finger as he explained.

“Ay Ai?”

Unsurprisingly, Iliva did not get that word either.

“AI, Artificial Intelligent, damn it, how do I even begin to explain this shit? Oh, Iliva, do you know what’s a golem is?”

“Those magic puppets that the titans in the first age created to battle for them, right?” Iliva confirmed.

“Yes, thank gods that you know what they were. Otherwise, I don’t even know how to explain this. Okay, AI are very similar to golem. This AI that I fought, its name was Heavennet. It was created by three AI engineer geniuses, just think these three nerds as someone who were ten or a hundred times smarter than even Niwdar that goddess of nature. And this Heavennet they created was a monster of the like that I have never seen. I really hate it,” Fearless began to tell his story while flicking his finger against the platinum bangle nonstop.

Heavennet was an AI bot that created with the purpose of pioneering the future generations of advance AI bots to use in video games. It was so smart that it could learn and master every mechanical movement, technique, and even strategy that a ROC pro-gamer like Fearless himself learn through a decade within five months. Heavennet was unique to all the AI bots created before it because it was not programmed to understand the rules of ROC. It was created to play one versus one against itself over and over again while being coached by 20 of the best ROC pro-gamers in the world. Becausse ROC was such a complex game, it took a lot of time for Heavennet to develop to be completed. However, as long as it was a one on one battle and all the specific conditions required for it to stand on the same ground as a ROC pro-gamer are fulfilled, no pro-gamer has ever defeated it after its one year birthday. Heavennet was developed and improved day by day by studying Fearless and the top ROC pro-gamers playing their games. It learned their technique and strategy, copied them and developed a different version of its own, better and more efficient.

After a year of development, it was so powerful that it completely obliterated all of the top twenty ROC players in a one on one match up. Even the like of FY, Superior, and Nightmare, the only three who Fearless acknowledged as his equal in the game got their asses kicked by this AI. And Fearless himself was no exception. It was very frustrating to admit that something like that AI was able to do what Fearless and all the top pro-gamers have paid a decade of their life to learn and master.

Though, at that point, that piece of information only circulated among the top 20 ROC pro-gamers circle and kept secret from everyone else who weren’t involved in the project. There were just about 30 people in that project. People who was uninvolved with the project at this point could only hear the rumor of a super advance AI bot was in development with the help of all the top 20 players of ROC pro-league.

And yet, Fearless could only curse that mean spirited person who thought that it would be awesome to show the defeat of the top twenty ROC pro-gamer at the hands of Heavennet, the hands of their very own creation during an All-star weekend, yet, on the biggest stage the Golden Era Arena where all the finals of ROC World Cup were held for 60 million fans and players of ROC to see.

And that was fifteen day after the third birthday of Heavennet. That monster was already three years old. There was no focking way that anyone can beat that thing on its term in a one on one battle.

And one by one, the fans learned the horror of witnessing their idols got completely crushed by an AI bot on the biggest stage of ROC. The stake was high and it kept rising as higher ranking pro-gamers were being defeated by this AI. By the time, the top five pro-gamer entered the stage for this unwinable battle, the crowd almost went numbed to the horror.

Superior, Nightmare, FY, they held on the longest and did their best but eventually, Heavennet defeated them.

Before he knew it, it was his turn. Fearless stepped on the platform and entered the game booth whilst the entire Golden Era Arena died down in ghostly silence. He has never knew that the Golden Era Arena could be so quiet during an All-star event, so quiet that he could even hear his erratic breathing sound.

Fearless tried to be very aggressive early on. He did not have a concrete strategy to defeat Heavennet when he sat down on his chair to pick up the mouse and keyboard. He was never able to defeat the damn thing for a single time after its one year birthday. It was a very unsettled feeling to enter a fight without a winning strategy or even the slightest hope of winning.

Heavennet responded to every move Fearless made and no matter how aggressive Fearless was, it never back down. It actually managed to keep the flow of the match balance despite being under constant pressure. After the thirty minute mark, the damn thing knew that Fearless has truly exhausted his options and began to counterattack. And it backed him down to his final frontier. Somehow, he managed to defend himself with everything he had and prolonged the match to the one hour and thirty minute mark.

At this point, Fearless knew he could not beat the damn thing. The military power between his kingdom and its kingdom was already very distant. But he prolonged the match anyway, tired and exhausted as he was but it was not in him to quit. The name of The Alliance was on his back, the names of the top twenty world class ROC pro-gamer were on his two shoulders. He could not call a quit on them. He played the game for pride.

So he just played the damn match without any idea how to beat that monster. And slowly, Heavennet advanced its massive army. Fearless tried to maneuver his army around that, splitting his army, trying to do random stuffs, trying to deny the damn AI of a final conclusive battle. If he faced it on an open field, he would be defeated without a doubt. Its army was larger than his, and the composition of its army was built to counter his troops. After deducting Fearless' intention, Heavennet baited him and all of sudden, it ignored Fearless’ running and hiding army and went straight for his final fortress with his war lord inside. It was a monster.

It was that very moment, Fearless said “Fuck it,” on an international broadcasted match which got himself fined $8000 for that afterward by the international pro-league of ROC. But he said the word and launched his entire army straight at the final fortress of Heavennet, completely relinquishing the defense of his final fortress.

Suddenly, it became a fortress-race scenario, the one that put down his opponent’s final fortress first would win the war.

Neither Fearless nor Heavennet withdrew their troops to defend their final fortress, they focused on besieging each other’s final fortress instead. And yet, after just one minutes, Heavennet withdrew two third of its army and sent them back to defend its final fortress whilst the other one third continued to siege the objective. It has calculated that Fearless would put down its fortress earlier than its massive army. Heavennet managed to calculate that Fearless would have won the fortress-race by a mere three seconds and opted for an alternative solution. Fearless had thrice as many witches in his army than it did. And witches, they were siege-specialized troops, second to none in ROC in term of laying siege to a fortress. Heavennet built its army solely to counter Fearless' army while Fearless built this strange mismatched army of his based on his natural habit and instinct. Somehow, his built up mistakes and habits gave Fearless an edge in this battle.

At this point, Fearless once again said the damn word, thankfully, the league mercifully counted it as one occasion with the earlier breaching of rules and did not fine him another $8000. He sent half of his army to die to slow down Heavennet’s returning army while keeping his witches to fan the flames on its final fortress.

And after another five minute, Fearless ran out of his game booth with the world top twenty ROC players pounced over him, grabbed his body and tossed him into the air. The Golden Era Arena erupted in a manner that even Fearless and all the ROC pro-gamers had never seen. Even when they won the ROC World Cup, it did not explode like that. It was like the air and gravity were sucked out of that building. There was only a cacophony of screams and even more screams.

Fearless has beaten that damn monster on the biggest stage of ROC ever. And his award for beating that monster? A platinum bangle with the nano AI processing chip of that version of Heavennet he battled that day embedded in it. It made Fearless felt like he was Hercules who after defeated the Nemea lion, he skinned it and wore its skin as a trophy.

“And for that the gods decided to reward me with the skill, ‘What you can do, I can do better,’ which allowed me to transform myself into any target I desire, to possess the same skills, magic and strength as them. Just like how Heavennet can copied mine and everyone else’s fighting style and strategy.”

Fearless explained as he read the description explaining the skill from the fourth page of his character sheet.

“So you can turn yourself into anyone?” Iliva asked.

“What you can do, I can do better,” Fearless chanted the spell to prove it to Iliva. Immediately, he turned into Iliva in front of her eyes. The illusionary character sheet inside his head changed as well.

He could not access to the biography page of Iliva and thus turned the page into the second page which showed Iliva’s attributes.

Ilivadary Kron’tarr/Arachne/Female/Warlord

MIGHT

89

LEADERSHIP

60

POLITIC

15

CHARISMA

40

INTELLIGENT

60

WISDOM

50

After reading that table, Fearless lamented how Iliva was more of a muscle brain than he has expected. Her MIGHT attribute was reasonably high for an Arachne, normally warlords or officers Arachne had about 70 MIGHT at level 10. If Iliva reached the cap level at 30, she might become a one man army with her MIGHT over 100 at any rate. He also thought that her POLITIC need to improve since she’s a warlord. This attribute was one of the most important stat for a warlord after all.

Fearless turned the next page.

Perks:

· Niwdar’s perpetual curse: Designed as monster to be attacked by all intelligent races. (Medium) Regeneration over time.

· Albino: Taking burn damage over time under sunlight.

· Blessing of Naharis: Can access to ancient magic skill

· Spider queen: Provide large boost to strength and morale of ally Mangora spiders under control.

· Elven sense: Provide boost to personal scouting ability

· Elven blood: Aging at a slower rate (High)

He has expected everything in this page other than Albino and Spider queen. These two perks were new to him. They made Fearless wondered if this was a new patch version of ROC. He did not think much and turned the next page.

Skills:

· Arachne’s thread

· Obey me!

· Fragments of Naharis

· Strength of the dark god

There was nothing for him to see in this page. It was just some generic skills like Fearless has half expected that Iliva might possess. Iliva was the typical MIGHT type Warlord, and most of the time, the MIGHT type warlord and officer received generic skill to prevent them from breaking the game balance.

Iliva was staring at him with her jaw dropping. Fearless closed his eyes and canceled his transformation before Iliva might have some funny idea.

He was himself again, the page inside his head also reverted back to his own.

Skills:

· A strange choice

· The Magician

· What you can do, I can do better

· Heart of Champion

· Witch lover

Fearless himself was recognized as a Warlord, yet, he had no unit under his control nor domain to rule. He expected that was the main reason he was rewarded with all of those five unique skills to compensate for his lack of troops and land. At least in this part, the gods, the game, the game developers or whoever or whatever responsible for his current predicament played fair to him.

“So Iliva, teach me how to cook this thing,” Fearless cackled when he saw Iliva still got stuck with her jaw dropping animation.

And Iliva being Iliva, she kept her words even when she had that distasted look on her face.