《Overlord》Ch 6: Jealousy
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It was midday when Riku sauntered back to the camp dragging the carcass of a two-headed earth dragon with him. Wide-eyed stares greeted him as he headed to the center of the enclosing and unceremoniously dumped the body next to the campfire.
“You sure took your time walking back. I was worried that you harbored a grudge and decided to not come back,” Sylvia said.
“Well if I decided to do so, I’m pretty sure you would’ve turned this forest upside down to find me,” Riku retorted.
“I wouldn’t have needed to do that because I placed a tracking crystal on your body while you slept.”
“…”
Clang!
The sound of copper being mangled startled them. Out of the corner of his eye, Riku saw a man glaring at him, fingers grasping what remained of the plate in his hands.
“Oh, don’t mind him. Arifin is overprotective; he’s my bodyguard. Anyhow, that is some gift you brought back,” Sylvia said.
“Oh, the two-headed dragon? I encountered it on the way back. It thought that I was an easy target and attacked me. When it realized I wasn’t, the dragon retreated and launched attacks at random intervals. After fending off some fireballs, tail swipes, bites, and mud balls, I got fed up and killed it. I brought it back as a thank you for saving me.”
“In that case, thanks! A dragon’s carcass is extremely valuable. You must be tired after all that fighting,” Sylvia said.
They headed back to his tent.
Upon reaching the entrance, Sylvia leaned in and whispered in Riku’s ear, “At midnight, meet me outside the campgrounds. I will teleport us back to the clearing. Make sure you aren’t followed.”
Riku strode into his tent, set his sword down, flopped onto his cot, and fell asleep. A few moments later, he was rudely awoken by the sensation of cold steel on his throat and a weight on his chest.
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“Who are you and why are you in my room?” Riku asked.
“Who I am doesn’t matter. Don’t talk unless prompted and don’t move unless you have a death wish. Nod if you understand.”
Riku nodded.
“Now that everything is clear. Who are you?” the voice asked.
“Riku.”
“What is your relationship with Sylvia?”
“She saved my life and we only met yesterday.”
“If you two met yesterday, why did she save you the first moment she laid eyes on you?”
“You’re Arifin? Ugh! Why’d you hit me in the gut?”
“Answer the question. If you don’t, you will experience much more pain.”
“I don’t know why she saved me…”
“Fine. What did she say to you before she left?”
“Nothing. She told me to rest up.”
“If I find out you are lying…”
Riku felt the pressure on his chest let up and the sense of steel on his throat vanished.
“Fucking jealous bastard. If he likes her, he should tell her,” Riku cursed when he Arifin left the tent.
He promised himself that he would never be caught unaware again. Unable to fall asleep, Riku got up and walked to the center of the campsite for some food. After finishing his meal, he headed back to his tent and meditated.
Midnight came. Riku slipped out of his tent and sensed someone following him. He changed directions and walked faster. Riku heard his stalker’s footsteps increase in speed as well. He broke into a run, increasing the distance between him and his pursuer. He stopped, jumped into the bushes, and hid in the shadows. He saw his stalker stop and inspect the ground trying to track where Riku went. The pursuer heard a noise in the bushes and focused his attention on the surrounding bushes. As Riku crouched on the ground, not daring to move a muscle. His heart raced and he reached for his sword prepared to draw it, should his enemy find him.
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After searching for some time, his pursuer gave up and wandered off. Riku let out a sigh of relief, kept to the shadows, and left the campgrounds.
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Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. 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