The leader was young, yet he spoke like an old man.
Arthur accepted the invitation and the group led him to their small village. There was a small fence made of broken and rotting woods, eroded by water around the huts. Their roofs were knitted by leaves, impermeable green leaves, walls of thin long uneven woods... That sight gave him goosebumps, and sadness and pity prickled his eyes. They watered but stayed in the bed of whites as he commanded them to.
The leader told him to wait here as he informed the chief of the village. He went inside the smallest hut and came out with an older version of himself with him. The old one used a sword in its scabbard as a cane and supported himself on it with every step he made. He was covered with a single thin layer of brown fur, and was as tall as him. "I thank our savior for today's offering. Some could have died in the cold night without food in their belly."
"You don't have to thank me," Art told them. The curious children as well as adults were glaring at him. Some were shy and hid by their mothers or fathers, others were bolder and stood by the chief to eavesdrop on the conversation. "If you don't mind me asking, what are you? I've never seen creatures like you before." I hadn't seen a giant boar, or spider either until I came into this world.
"We are ogres. It may not look like it but we are a savage race of monsters that prey on the weak... At least that's what humans say about us. Can we speak in private, our savior?"
They brought him inside the chief's hut. It had no doors, only a veil of leaf, rippling with the wind. Privacy wasn't a luxury, it was a way of life.
I know that I've said it before but I miss my home, he sighed.
Arthur was seated on the sole chair in the room while the chief and the leader who begged before and a youngster sat on the ground.
The chief bowed his head, kissing the dirt. "I implore you, our saviour, save my people!"
I did not see that coming.
"As you saw earlier, we are all dying of starvation. That is because a rival village came by every other day to steal our food and females. They killed whoever stood in their way. They killed my son, their brother." He raised his head to match Arthur's eyes. The old ogre's eyes were molten gold and the white had reddened from all the tears he shed.
"The food we bring which is not even enough for us is stolen by them," continued the one who begged for the boar. "If we don't give them food, they take our females and children and make them slaves." He bowed his head as well. "I deeply apologise. I had an ulterior motive when I brought you here. We saw how powerful you were so I thought... perhaps..."
"I could help you destroy your enemies," Art answered.
"Yes," he raised his head.
It did seem fishy why they would have brought a stranger to their dying village when he'd threatened their lives. Arthur could see the little children through the gaps in the walls, they were peeping, eavesdropping... They looked so frail, so innocent, even for monsters. "In exchange for my help, what will you offer me?"
The three of them bowed down, their brows on the ground. "We have nothing but one to offer you..." said the chief, "our unwavering loyalty."
Arthur smile. That was the answer he was hoping for. Maybe this world isn't as bad as I thought.
The ogres had eaten the fat boar the night before. Now dawn had come, with a crispness in the air and a cold breeze blowing in his face.
Arthur had called all the ogres of the village. He counted forty-nine in all. Neither their numbers nor their lack of meat and muscles played in his favour. Against all odds, he decided to put together a plan, which was quite simple.
The ogres had ringed him and were listening attentively to him. "Attacking isn't our forte. We need to defend if we are to survive," he began.
Even the children were present, they were sacks of bones with small golden eyes, and dry, mucky and stained hair...
"We have till noon," said the son of the chief. He had tricked him into helping his people, not that Arthur relished that he was played but he also wanted to help them. Mayhaps because he was a doctor in the other world, or mayhaps he had grown hubristic, overconfident of his newly acquired abilities. "The afternoon if we are lucky. The forest sometimes slows them down."
The hunters had tracked down a large deer of white fur and red eyes for the rival village ogres. A broken spear was shoved into the animal's neck and bathed its pure white fur to a soiled dark red. A few kids were wheeling about the beast, poking it with a stick and a few daring ones stroked its fur. Arthur did the numbers in his head, twelve kids in all...
He scratched an itch behind his ear, his silver threads in his eyes. "How many of you know how to fight with a sword, or a spear or even use a bow?"
"The hunters know how to wield a sword and shoot an arrow, as well as the art of spear..." said the old ogre. His hair was dry and grey. "I can swing my sword too..." He tapped it on the ground. Tap, tap, tap.
Arthur scanned his sword, sheathed with a brown skin and a red ruby that immediately caught the eyes of the people. "I don't doubt it," but you'll die if you do, "you are the chief of your small village. You are needed alive and well, rather than dead or wounded. You won't fight today."
A young and frail ogre came running to them, a glass bottle in his hands. "I found it! I found it! It was hidden deep under my bed."
The glass container held a luminescent green elixir inside. He handed it to the chief of the village. The old ogre passed it to Arthur, who didn't know what it was or what to do with it.
"What's this?"
"It's a healing potion. It works on wounds but not on illnesses," answered the eldest son of the chief. "When the plague hit, we tried to cure the people with the potion but it had no effect. After a while, the people died, so did the money and soon our supplies were reduced to a handful... Then the looters found our broken village and exploited us..."
Where have I heard of this scenario? He asked himself.
"Answer: Unknown"
Of course you wouldn't know. Then answer this, he told his inner voice in his head, how effective is this potion?
Art began to see lines, and numbers and words in his vision, as if he'd been playing a game all along. It was scanning the potion trapped in his hands.
"Answer: Potion was evaluated to be 97% effective. It is one of the most expensive healing potions on the market, second most expensive in some countries and the most accurate healing potion was evaluated to be 98.5%. Nobody has ever created a fully 100% healing potion."
97? I wonder if... Computer, will I be able to replicate this potion if I use 'Devourer'?
"Answer: Yes"
That was music to his ears. Without wasting another second, Art opened the bottle with a pop and swallowed a sip of green. The ogres winced and tried to talk him out of misusing the valuable item, though Arthur had enough to analyse and replicate it.
"Devourer set in motion... Analysing item... Item broken down... Copy successful... Replicating item now possible..."
Arthur stretched an arm forward, and focused on his fingers. He could feel the magical particles in his body being drawn into his hands, changing on a molecular level and finally, an orb of green came forth. The ogres were in wonderment, their jaws falling down...
"You are great... Our saviour... Save us... You are so powerful..."
The sudden uproar of admiration and shower of compliments put a grin on his ruby lips.
Later on, Arthur ordered the construction of a bulwark around the village. The ogres cut down trees of green leaves and honed trunks and branches and impaled them to the ground in a deadly display of valuable woods.
Better this than nothing, Art declared.
The sun danced vigorously over their heads all the while they prepared the defences.
A shoddy wall of sticks and trunks had risen from the ground to thrice his size, though the largest truck was the diameter of his small waist. It covered half the village and was draped with hefty leaves of some aquatic plants... The ogres then began to gather their weapons. They piled swords of fine and broken metals alike, broken shields, good shields, spears, bows and quivers of arrows.
"This is all our weapons," the old chief said. His voice had been shaking every time he uttered a word. Tap, tap, tap... went his sword.
The villagers had slid into their armour of black scales, some even had a thin mail of silver and steel armour that gleamed under the shining sun. If only they weren't so scrawny, he thought, so sickly. As if they could collapse with a strong blow of wind. A little meat and some muscles and they were good to go... Good to live like strong ogres, like they were supposed to be.
Survival to the fittest, was an end to end encryption to this world. Only the strong survived and the weak died.
"We have procured an armour that could fit you," said the chief's son. The more Art looked at him, the more he reminded him of people on the streets... Poor, dirty, starved and miserable. He didn't want to fail these monsters, these ogres who were more humane than most humans he'd met.
He raised his head to the sky, to the sun. It's almost noon, he stiffened. His sapphire eyes were deeper than the blue sky and glinted in the sunlight. It was time, he knew it, he smelt it.
A murder of crows wheeled above their heads. Their plumage was jet black, darker than the night itself. That isn't a good omen, Art thought. Crows never are.
"Everybody to their posts," he commanded. "Take your weapons, wear your armour, defend what is yours. You've suffered enough by the hands of the strong, you've been bullied enough..." the ogres stationed themselves where Arthur had told them earlier that day. The children were well hidden in a hut, closed behind a wooden door.
Birds flew in their direction, trees began to quake and the ground suddenly adopted a silent fast. A tall and girthy ogre with spotted brown skin stepped out of the forest, an axe on his shoulder. Another one came forth, then another, others came out from the shadows. Arthur counted one hundred and twelve large ogres, well-fed, well trained without a doubt and heavily armed.
One began to march towards the village. They didn't expect a wall to rise from the ground when they had been here numerous times before. Arthur left the wall behind him to join the ogre that came forward, the leader, he supposed.
"Move aside little man," he snorted. He was big, with biceps and abs and a big ass axe in one hand. His hair was pitch black and his eyes were molten gold as the rest of the ogres. Two fangs from his lower jaw met his upper lip. "We are here to collect what is due."
"You will collect nothing, but fire and blood if you seek to harm this village in any way."
A few ogres stepped forward to intimidate him whilst his battered ogres hid behind a holed wall of sticks and trunks like cowards. He didn't blame them however. The looters were huge and strong, all of them were almost thrice his height... The old ogre stood alone, his sheathed sword around his grip, at the entrance of the village, like a vigilante on a dark night.
"Your blood!"
The ogre lifted his silver axe and swung it. Arthur rapidly used mimic to replicate the armour of the apceros over his left arm and blocked his hit. Silver shards flew over the place like tears of a grieved crone. The ogre flung his broken axe aside and struck with his giant fists. Arthur dodged a punch, then another, then kick the beast ten meters away.
"I already told you," Art said, "you'll get only fire and blood here."
Three ogres jumped on him at the same time. He pushed one with water, used his web to tie one down and punched through the armour of the last one. But it wasn't enough, there were too many of them. But something was odd about them, Arthur noticed. They appeared reluctant to swing their blade.
At the same time, their leader was back on his feet. That was when he revealed his ability to bend fire.
Yellow flames cladded his arms, now red, now orange, now yellow again. They patterned under the burning sun. He propelled a giant sphere of fire at Art. The latter knew what to do, his favourite element played in his favour. He heaved back his arms then flicked an orb of water at the looming fireball. Vapour came forth when they collided. The two of them played with fire and water for a few minutes until they realised that it was leading to nothing.
It seems only this ogre has this fire ability, Art concluded. I want to add fire to my abilities. I already have water, now fire came knocking at my door... It would be rube to not answer it.
"I'm telling you for the last time. Take your group and walk away from this village and never come back."
The old chief had told him yesterday, "If they see that their leader is losing, the others will change side. The ogres follow the strongest. Beat their leader and you beat the army."
Arthur knew what to do. He waited until the ogre decided to change tactics and opted for a hand to hand combat. He threw himself on Arthur and a gas of poison exploded on his face. The ogre inhaled the posoin and lost balance, falling to the ground.
The poison is working, he told himself.
The silver haired boy used 'mimic' to turn into a black basilisk, long and ugly with deadly red eyes. All the ogres fell in shock, panic and fear. He didn't think twice and swallowed the opposite party's leader, using 'devourer' to obtain his abilities. Then he turned towards the other ogres, all excited with fear and dread. One hundred and eleven ogres in his ranks and none of them stepped forward to save his life.
The old chief had also told him about fighting their leader. "If you fight the leader head on, one on one, the other ogres will have no choice but to honour the tradition. When you fight the leader, you fight to kill, to take his place as the new leader... But of course not all honour the traditions, some could interfere."
Basilisk Arthur overlooked them with his long neck and hissed. One knelt, a second, a third... Arthur opened his mouth full of razor-sharp fangs and let out a deafening roar... The ogres sank to their knees, one by one... Five stayed up, head high up and walked to him. He knew that if they stayed alive, a mutiny was imminent. He opened his mouth and fire and heat washed over them. They died, burning alive like brave soldiers.
He returned to the frail little boy that he was.
"This group yields to you, Great One," said a female ogre. She had armour on and let her brown hair stumbled on her shoulders, a skirt of brown fur. Their eyes were reversed towards the ground.
The ogres behind the wall jumped in joy and excitement, screaming and cavorting... Waving their swords and spears about their heads in victory...
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