Chapter 39: The Prince’s solving his problems

Killing Ekar was a mistake.

Fearless did not want to admit that at first. However, once he saw how broken the women were, he regretted killing Ekar.

Ekar was the venom that broke the women. However, he was an important ingredient to create the antidote to save these women. Yet, Fearless has killed him. It was a mistake.

Fearless told himself that he should have kept Ekar alive to extract the antidote from the worm. Of course, doing something like that was burdensome and Bloodbeard would intervene. However, Fearless would do that regardless. He knew that he could.

He would break Ekar right in front of the women to show them that Ekar was nothing to be fear. He would give them the courage to break Ekar, to kill the worm with their own hands and to reclaim their once stripped humanity with their own effort. That was the best option, the fastest.

However, he has killed the worm.

Fearless has eliminated his best option the moment he decided to kill Ekar. He underestimated Ekar’s cruelty and thoroughness. He underestimated the damage Ekar inflicted on the world.

Fearless laid Erinys down on his straw bedding. Laboriously she breathed, often sniffing in between. Her cheeks were swollen red, printed with the vestige of Fearless’ anger. Her eyes were even redder, dampened with the last of her tears. Even when she has passed out from sheer exhaustion, her bony fingers still clutched tightly to hem of Fearless’ jacket with an unlikely strength, refusing to let go.

He kissed her and gently stroked her head.

He told her to cry out, holding nothing back and she did, crying until she no longer had the strength to do so. She howled like a feral beast, unreservedly, unleashing the raging storm of pain, grief, and sorrow from within the depth of her soul. She has hollered and drowned out her emotions into Fearless’ shoulder.

Her cry was pain and rage, raw and loud as a concert of metal. Her cry was desperation, gripping like her clutching fingers, ready to latch to anything that might save her.

That meekness and quietness that she shared with the other women were but a ruse, a camouflage, and a self-defense system that she adopted against Ekar, to avoid his attention, to save herself from more pain and suffering. But no longer.

The pain was the instrument, venom, and the antidote.

Ekar broke her with pain and torture. With pain, Fearless taught her that her fate was linked to his, and no longer Ekar.

Fearless turned around and watched the other women’s reaction. Confusion, fear and a little bit of something else. They still huddled in their pack, understandable.

Erinys was their weakest. Had Erinys been their leader, their representative, it would have been a different story. Erinys would have made it so much easier for Fearless to do his jobs. Erinys would have led these women by example, her example. It would be so much easier to do away with Ekar’s manipulation.

But, Erinys was their weakest. They even united against her and forced the task upon her, probably thinking that Fearless was trapping them. Fearless guessed that Ekar must have used some kind of traps like that against them in the past to reinforce that they were his dogs.

“I will not give you the same privilege that I gave to Erinys,” Fearless told the women, “I gave you only one chance and you all had let that chance slipped away from your hands.”

He spoke to the women with a clear and reprimanded voice while wrapping his arms around Erinys, tightly hugging her fragile frame.

“Even if you became human once again, even if you are no longer Ekar’s dog, I will not give you the same kind of protection or affection that I give to Erinys. If you are hurt, I will not comfort you as I did to Erinys.” Fearless tenderly kissed Erinys’ closed eyebrows while rhythmically stroking her disheveled hair. “It could have been you or you or you, any of you.” Fearless pointed his fingers at the women who looked like they were the leaders of the group, “You had that chance and yet, you let it slipped away.”

Fearless made the women understood that his vow to Erinys was a special privilege and he rubbed on it. “If that time comes when I no longer can protect myself and this group, I will prioritize Erinys before all of you. I will sacrifice my own life if it was what it takes to protect her.”

Fearless had no idea if Erinys had some leadership quality in her. However, he had no time to experiment to find that answer.

She was their weakest. And she attained that special privilege by sheer dumb luck. The only reason that she has attained that special privilege was that these women passed up on their chance.

“It could have been you.” Fearless hammered that idea like a nail into their mind. “Yet, you let that chance slipped away.” He repeated to affirm that, reinforcing that idea through action and words.

Fearless made Erinys to become the target of these women’s envy since Erinys was not their leader. He needed a leader figure to lead these women by example. But, if there was no leader, Fearless had to adapt with his new scheme.

“I will try to protect you all since I have saved you from Ekar. That, I promise to all of you. However, again, as I have told Erinys, I will not welcome dogs in my group, especially Ekar’s dogs.”

Erinys became a shining example. Erinys would be an example to reinforce that Fearless was no Ekar. She would be the example to teach these women that Fearless would treat them very differently from Ekar. She would become a goal.

“I will give you all two days to change, to stop being dogs, to be human again. You shall not bark like dogs. You shall not grovel like dogs. You shall not be dogs. But if you do, I will expel you from my hearth. You shall not have my protection. These bandits, these brutes, these rapers, murderers, these worms, whatever they do to you is none of my business. I would not lift a finger.”

Fearless has given the women an example, a goal and a time limit.

“Until then, I will protect you from these bandits. I will feed you. I will share this place with you.” Fearless gave them his deadline. “However, two days, that is my limit. When that time comes, I will ask you your name, you shall tell me yours. You shall speak like a human. You shall stand like a human. You shall be human.”

Terror is what broke these women, may terror undo the damages it inflicted on them.

Shock therapy might not be the best therapy for these broken women. However, Fearless had no time for the other options. He gave himself a deadline of three days to deal with his own problems. He has accepted that these women would be his handicaps, however, he could not let handicaps be handicaps forever.

“Do remember that,” Fearless warned the women. “Also, do remember this very clearly, I will prioritize Erinys over all of you if worse came to worst.” He kissed Erinys again like a lover, smothering her within his arms.

Erinys would be a drive. Erinys, unfortunately, would become a target of these women’s envy. She would drive them into action through their envy. She would make them change just by receiving Fearless’ love and attention.

Erinys did not have to lift a finger. She did not need to speak a word to move these women. She did not need to become a leader. Just by being loved by Fearless, Erinys would move these women into action.

His love, his devotion, and his kindness to Erinys would be a nail to these women’s mind, making them regret on passing up their only chance.

If terror were not enough of a drive to make these women human again, envy would be the backup. And Fearless had intended to make these women green with envy the very moment they sold out one of their own.

They deserved that, at least.

Fearless thought so.

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The women have fallen asleep as soon as Fearless lit up the hearth. They were just as exhausted as Erinys. Taking the opportunity, Fearless rummaged through his belonging to search for four specific concoctions. He remembered packing them with him when he left the Temple of the Dark God.

All potions are either red or green in color. Red potions restore health and green potions restore mana. A potion could only restore either health or mana, never both. That is a universal law in the world of Escana back when it was a game. There is no exception. Any substance or concoction that had a trace of magic residue within them that were neither reddish nor greenish was definitely not drinkable.

That law allowed Fearless to identify the nature of the luggage he inherited from those deceased Greyscale magic casters with ease. However, it was not like that was a difficult job, to begin with. The owners of those apothecary satchels were very thorough and professional with the way they stored their concoctions.

Potions were stored in a separate pocket and anything else in a different pocket of their satchel. Some of the owners were even more careful with their concoctions that they stored them in completely separated satchels. They also labeled all of their concoctions with inks, making it impossible for people to mistake the nature of the concoction unless they were illiterate in the writing of the Titan like Fearless.

According to the lore of ROC, the Titan tongue is a dead language in the world of Escana, similarly to Latin on Earth. Nobody spoke the Titan tongue as the first langue other than the Titans, and the Titans were extinct.

Yet, the Titan tongue and writing did not become lost just like their civilization.

Titan was like a compulsory second langue for all the lords, nobles, royalty, scholars and magic casters of all the intelligent races to study and practice. However, they are only required to learn the writing and not the tongue. The Titan writing became something like a common academic writing for scholars and researchers among all the races. According to the lore, the goddess of wisdom Eogaill advocated the races of Escana to do that to allow knowledge to cross the boundary of races and cultures.

The Titan Tongue on the other hand, however, did not experience that popularity.

Many of the ancient elves, especially high elves still spoke the Titan tongue, them and a small group of people like Misery and FY.

While Fearless thought that it was such a Misery’ thing to do, the fact that even someone like FY learned that language, it made Fearless realized that the Titan tongue was a “Thing” among the followers of the Escana series.

Fearless could not understand how Misery and FY could commit so much of their time to study a fictional langue.

If you could spend time to study a fictional langue, why not using that time to pick up a real langue?

Fearless was meant to ask them that question but he ever did, not once. He understood that they loved doing that.

Love is ever strange and ever confusing.

While it was not uncommon for players of ROC to know certain common words or famous quotes in Titan tongue, it was bizarre for anyone to be fluent in that fictional langue.

Not even the developers of ROC were fluent in that language, and they were the inventors of that language. Yet FY and Misery actually spent so much of their time to practice and mastered that langue through self-study and self-taught. There were only over a handful of people on Earth who were fluent in that fictional langue and two members of The Alliance were in that strange club.

That was the length that people would go for the things they actually loved.

That was the difference between the “real fans” of Escana and the “casuals”, according to Misery.

Fearless loved the gameplay. He loved the competitions. He loved the fanfares. However, his love for the lore of ROC could never match the “real fans” of the Escana series, that, he had to admit.

I can’t use Titan to pick up girls anyway. If I used Titan, only a handful of people could understand it. What’s the point of learning it?

That was the excuse that Fearless used to deny Misery’ effort to recruit him into that strange club.

He could learn it anytime he wanted but he refused to learn it. It was such a weird thing to do.

Regardless, Fearless was familiar with the Titan tongue and writing to a very limited extent. After all, he has spent over a decade playing ROC and made a living out of it. Besides, the developers of ROC kept slapping the Titan writing into the face of the players at every opportunity they had. Even if Fearless refused to learn the writing, he would inadvertently become familiar with the writing at one point if he kept playing ROC for years.

He could identify the most basic Titan runes. That and the knowledge of the lore was all Fearless needed when he packed his luggage for the journey to Madukat. Back then, he just packed everything that might be useful for his journey, necessity, valuables and some luxuries.

Potions, regardless of their properties are universally regarded as luxuries in the world of Escana. They are healing salves that are enchanted with magic properties through Alchemy, therefore, became more potent and valuable than the common salves. The kind of people who always possessed potions with them were those who had the wealth to buy them or the ability to create them through Alchemy. The same rule applied for .

“There you are,” Fearless quietly muttered when a small jar of clay found its way into his palm. On its label, Fearless recognized four Titan runes.

, it was both the name of a non-lethal poison and a unique late game command to all the units that are associated with the banner of the Greyscale back when ROC was still a game. When a player activated the command, the Greyscale units under control would throw these jars of poison like grenades toward a specific area, creating a cloud of poison that instantly disables any unit within the area of effect.

Soldier units would be disabled for 10 seconds, 3 seconds for general units.

This skill would not cost any mana or HP to activate. It could be activated while the units were casting other magic spells. It had no cool-down timer either.

The primary use of this command is to buys time for the Greyscale magic casters to complete their military graded magic spells while delaying enemy units, a defensive tactic.

Another use of this command is for offensive purpose. The command can be used to completely lock down general units of enemy faction when used in succession, allowing ally units to snipe down the stunned generals with projectiles.

This skill transformed the Greyscale units who were supposed to be vulnerable to melee attacks into a walking terror. They are powerful at range with their spells and have a powerful disable skill to dissuade people from approaching their range.

The developers knew that this skill was a broken skill. Therefore, they put several restrictions on this skill.

The first restriction is to unlock the perk on the Alchemy Research, making this skill can only be accessed in the late game period.

The second restriction is the amount of materials required to produce and equip on the Greyscale units, making this command became costly in term of gold and materials instead of mana. This restriction forced the players to tiptoe the line between cheesing the game by sniping enemy generals and being underdeveloped in the late game. The amount of gold and material used to create can be invested into other purposes to strengthen units or fortify castles.

The third restriction was not really a restriction. Only a unit of 800 magic casters or more can activate this command. And then, a bunch of other restrictions to dissuade players to abuse this skills in the multiplayer mode.

Despite that, players can still find a hundred ways to abuse this command for easy wins. Any side that picked the Greyscale faction was immediately projected to win the game because of this broke command.

was one of the many broken skills in the earlier day of ROC, making the Greyscale faction became universally banned in every competition. Players cannot pick them or recruit them under any circumstance. At one point, the developers even removed this skill from the Greyscale.

Through the years, this skill has been nerfed to the ground. Its casting range became abysmally shorter and its area of effect was reduced every year. Still, the players complained that the Greyscale is overpowered because people can still find the ways to exploit this skill for easy win.

The developers then implemented two additional restrictions on this skill. The first restriction is by giving it the friendly-fire property. The second is the single-use limitation, forcing the players return to their base to restock this command every single time it was used. With this, the four years reign of terror of the Greyscale ended. became but a gimmick.

Nonetheless, Fearless needed that gimmick for his plan to work at the moment.

The other three concoctions were easy to find. Two of them were kept in thick crystal tubes, wrapped around by thick clothes, one red as ruby the other green as emerald.

Fearless opened the green one, smelling it. It smelled like nail polish, the kind that Alice always used. He hesitated and could not bring himself to drink the potion. He told himself that any sane man on Earth would have done the same. He began to question if this greenish solution was nail polish and the tube was mislabeled.

Yet, this greenish nail polish was without a doubt a mana-restoring potion. Its label reinforced that belief.

The three runes for were inked on the tube.

Even knowing that, it did not make it easier for Fearless to drink the solution. The concoction smelled like nail polish after all.

What if it was an arcane poison?

Fearless began to doubt himself and his knowledge. It is hard to believe that this greenish nail polish is a drinkable solution. It took a while for Fearless to steel himself for the leap of faith. He told himself that unless this solution was the deadliest of arcane poison, he still had enough mana for one last . He pinched his nose and chucked the solution down his throat with a gulp.

The potion had a mature bitterness and it burned Fearless’ throat like fine wine. He thought that it wasn’t so bad, he could live with it. He released the pinch and Oh My God, it is so wrong.

The smell of nail polish filled his nose. It felt so wrong.

Regardless, Fearless instantly knew that the solution that he just drank was no poison. He intuitively felt a swirl within his mana reserve. It’s being restored at an astonishing rate.

Potion is a staple commodity for the Greyscale at any time. The Greyscale needed potions to heal themselves, to restore their lost mana and other purposes.

Back when it was a game, the Greyscale heavily depended on their Magic Research and Alchemy Research to make an impact in the game. They constantly had to invest their wealth and materials into both Magic and Alchemy Research over their fortifications.

The Greyscale is a late game faction, created to end the game. The longer the game being played, the stronger the Greyscale became. FY was especially famous for playing this faction before he founded The Alliance.

The Greyscales’ gameplay is heavily affected by the kind of spells and alchemic artifacts at their disposal, similar to the Judgment Army of White Winter. With military graded magic, they can tear down fortresses and castles with the same efficiency as dwarven siege engines.

The was a staple consumption of the Greyscale. It was a command and the name of a potion. This potion restored a fraction of the user’s mana and improved their mana recovery rate. Without this potion, the Greyscale quickly became irrelevant after a few volleys of spells. A Greyscale without mana makes no difference from a civilian on the battlefield, a gun without ammunition.

The same can be said about Fearless. He’s mana-dependent. Without mana, he cannot use his skills.

Fearless poured the red potion into the mouth of the unconscous man. Fearless was done dealing with the women, now it was this man’s turn.

Fearless expected the man to wake up, but he was only guessing. Fearless had no idea how long it would take for this man to wake up, but he waited.