Countless hours, countless minutes, countless seconds go by. I wait and yearn, yet I cannot die. I have no voice but I must scream. My blood a cursed, skin rotten yet I cannot die, I have power but I cannot use it. My blade only is now my lover.
-Forgotten King
The trek to misthaven was a straining one, I encounter beings that I haven't seen off.
One creature skin was rotting, it looked like mud yet it never dropped, Where its face would've been was only his rotting skin. The only thing that was there was a perturbing yellow glowing eye that appears from its chest. Hera called them dredges.
Another creature we stumbled upon was the skelts Humanoid monsters that stand at least 10 feet tall, the say never look in their eyes unless you want to see the void staring right back at you, whatever that means.
I forgotten to mention the landscape around us, It wasn't the green fields we were used to seeing no no, it was misty swampland that reeked of iron and toast.
We were barely getting much progress and when I mean we I mean me, Hera flew above us while Tron used magic to float, I did all the walking, the swamp water got into my boots while I struggled to lift a step out of the tar like mud.
We walked past many skelts, luckily for me they weren't hostile, creepy motherfuckers though.
It continue like this for a bit until we stopped, in front of us was a wreckage, a caravan wreckage, bodies laid all out.
I walked past it, so did Tron but of course the Hera who wanted nothing but to find the life crystal by the way wanted to stop and waste our time looking at a sea of scattered limbs and corpse.
"Wait, wait you psychos, we need to see if there is any survivors." she looked at me instead of Tron, a look filled with disgust.
I sighed and walked over to the nearest mangled corpse there was and poked and prodded at it.
"Are you alive?" I asked.
Tron watched while floating.
Hera lifted bodies and checked but she sighed when she found no a single soul alive.
"If I may interrupt your failed saving I see a body over there by that tree" Tron pointed behind me and I walked over. Unlike the other bodies this one was still intact, this one was knight, seem that this guy survived.
I grabbed the guy but I seem to forget my regular body isn't all that strong when I don't have my suit.
"Tron can you uh levitate this person" I point to the heap of metal.
The knight then slowly floated up off the ground.
"alright the village shouldn't be too far lets get going" Hera informed them
"If the village was so nearby why didn't they rescue these folks?" I asked
"Look around us, this environment isn't safe enough for a rescue party to pick them" Hera responded.
"Couldn't they had a group of adventurers to deal with it then?" Tron asked
"Probably too expensive besides this place isn't well suited for low level adventurers. she responded
I stopped confused, "low level?" I asked
she stops, "you don't know anything about the system?" she was confused.
"Yeah the system was bestowed upon us when the first hero emerged, every creature has this system." Tron added on
"No I was never taught this... what is the system about?" I asked another question.
"The system always existed to gods and us angels but not to the mortals of this world until the hero change it, think of it as a way to increase you attributes without needing to train them."
"here repeat after me, say System while thinking of it" Tron instructed
"System!" a golden screen appears in front of me.
System
James Gold
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Level 23
Health 100/100
Defense 10 (+5)
Experience 123/3000
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HP 10
STR 7
INT 129
SPD 6
MGC 0
WIS 0
LCK o
"Can you see it?" I asked, I can't take my eyes off it.
"No you would need to allow me too see it so just say all" she responds
"All" nothing happens but I heard Tron chuckle behind me.
"Not bad, my intelligence Is a little higher than yours" Tron said with a smirk
Hera for once touched the ground just to see it. "Interesting, you're stats are the worst I've ever seen"
"Huh? who asked you!" I snapped at her
"You have nothing in magic, nothing in wisdom or even in luck, you're strength, health and speed are very mediocre, A baby orc could win against you in an arm wrestling contest" she continues to pile insults after insults.
"but what about my intelligence?" I asked
she sighs, "your intelligence is alright for a silver rank adventurer, I'm surprised though, it seems your years of a being a genius contributed to your high intelligence without needing to level it up"
"how do I level up?" I ask while walking towards the town.
"you either must kill monsters, animals or having a person deposit experience to you" Tron explains.
"how about adventurers?" I questioned.
"Yes, but its looked down upon by others, so if you do decide to do that then prepare for a bounty on your head"
We eventually reach the village, I know I only known the city back home and willowbrook but yikes, the place looks miserable, vines and roots start to cover most of the houses here. I noticed something, a lot of children, like probably over a hundreds filled the streets here.
An old man approached us.
"hmm hello there, are you from the capitol? if so we have 3 kids that are very lucky enough." he said smiling, showing his crooked teeth.
"No just passing through" I responded.
he the give an disappointed look and hobbled off with his cane. I look at Hera
"what was that all about?" I asked curious
She sighs. and pointed at a small poster that was hanged on one of the buildings.
I approached it, making past the children running and playing. I inspected the poster and it read
"The Hero program, If your child was born with latent potential of being a hero please notify the Capitol guard and you and your family will be moved to a permanent residence in the capitol.
to Identify if your child is a hero you can Identify them by their golden eyes and a birthmark on their chest"
I looked at Hera when reading this aloud.
"The hero program came to be when the first hero disappeared after slaying the first demon king, they started to notice that a 10,000 out of 1 child would be born with golden eyes just like the first hero had, so they wanted to create more heroes to serve in their kingdoms, but they also want the heroes to protect the world when another demon king rose."
She looked saddened when mentioning the first hero.
"Not all of these so called heroes were strong as each other, so the demon army had little to no problem defeating them, this is when the second hero arose and killed the Demon king before succumbing to his wounds"
"did you know the second hero?"
"No, after the first hero disappeared I didn't want to grow closer to the other heroes. but from what I heard from the other sword bearers he was aggressive and loud." she said
I look around at all the children "so these parents wanted to get out of their miserable lifes so they had as much children to have a chance to get a child with golden eyes" I said sadly
"yes, cruel isn't it? their parents don't care about the other children, only wanting to have one golden ticket out of here" she for the first time agreed with me
"great conversation and all but we need to get this guy to see some medical attention" Tron said
"Yeah lets bring them to a priest" Hera responded
"Don't you know any healing?" I asked
"Idiot, If I did I would've healed him already" she responded
We walked through town past the miserable villagers and the children that played in the streets. The church was on top of the hill, it looked like it was in need of new paint and repair.
We opened the door and walked in, at the far end of the church was a priest at the alter praying
"Excuse my mr priest We want your help in healing this guy" I asked
The priest looked startled, he had a tired look on his face, his hair was already turning white form either old age or stress.
"yes yes, bring him over"
We brought him over, and laid him down, the priest looked around, inspecting the armor.
"This person armor is way to thick, each venerable part of their body is already covered. there is no wounds or sign of damage. my best guess is that they are in unconscious" he said, he then stretches his arms out making a Y stance.
"Oh great goddess, may you wake this person from their slumber" then nothing, nothing happens.
he then leaves into a room at the back and comes back with a bucket.
"May the great god of Water awaken thee knight" he then tosses water on the unconscious knight.
the sudden cold water startle the knight and they awoken with a fright they jumped up and punched the me away.
The sudden impact of the punch was a lot for me to handle and I fell into the pews. I struggle to get up as the knight rushed over to me realizing what he did.
"I'm so sorry!" they then took off their helmet to which reveal not a grizzled man but a girl, she has a light brown skin with short hair, she had a few scars near her neck and one on her nose.
"Damn you can punch" I said weakly, She helped me up to my feet, I noticed Hera giggling to herself.
after composing myself I then asked this girl "Who are you?"
"I am Rose, the second in command of the Capitol Knights of Drakonia" she smile after saying this clearly she prided herself in this.
"May I ask why were you and your men found outside of misthaven?" Hera asked
"we were ambushed by a monster. something huge and alien." She said clearly shaken when thinking of this
"So skelts then?" Tron suggested
"No skelts can be dealt with but this monster was bigger and more aggressive than anything I seen. My men we're slaughtered but I tried to save them but I before long I was being thrown into the air and everything went dark" she responded
We heard a commotion outside, we ran to see what was happening.
On the other side of the village and monster that was over two stories was running rampage in the village.
"That the thing who killed my men!" she yelled, anger filled her voice.
The monster was, it was make out of it but It had corpses that covered its body, flesh and bones. it was bipedal, it had four arms, each had sharp razorlike claws. My best guess was that the bodies were like a shell to it. It had a beak, three eyes, one on each side and one on the middle.
I then noticed rose already was running towards it, I sighed and pulled out the god slayer canon, Tron grabbed his wand while Hera pulled out her flame sword.
I really hate this village.
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Short tales
The man who bears the worlds suffering
Have you met him? The man who is fated to walk the earth who holds the worlds pain and suffering.
Little is known about him, the only thing that the few individuals can say is he wears dark torn armor of a knight, he has multiple spears that penetrated his back.
From what they gathered, He wanders the land aimlessly, he only knows a three things.
One, he must bear humanity sins, suffering and pain for his entire enteral life.
second, When ever humanity commits enough sins a new spear appears in his hand to which he needs to stab it through his chest making sure that he knows he must know of his role.
thirdly, when ever he decided to dream, he remembers parts of his previous life but its meaningless when they find out that he has a monthly memory reset that continues this cycle.
Some travel with him minutes before the reset to see he stands in a grave yard.
Whenever someone tries to talk to him he never remembers, making his cycle of pain and torment start a new.
So whenever you see this man the incarnation of humanities suffering please buy him a good cold drink.