Player Reached the Top. LitRPG series. Book I Page 17

  The captain tensed up. Strength flowed through his body. When it was high time, he disappeared using his best skill “the Scarlet Song of Death”. A moment later, Emin appeared behind the king. Blood dripped from the captain’s sword.

  All fighting stopped, and a great silence settled in the hall. Suddenly, the slashed body of the Latian king cracked and fell to the ground.

  Chapter 50. Consequences

  “Your unexpected and impudent actions have prevented a disaster in Adamarona. The king of the Latians swapped the king of this country but was killed. The country will face a process of change. The Non-Aggression Treaty was blocked. The future of Adamarona is unknown.

  Congratulations! The task “There is nothing kept secret that will not come to death” has been completed successfully.

  Rewards:

  +70000 XP for spies;

  +135000 XP for elite spies;

  +600 gold coins.

  Bonus: The king is dead +30000 XP,

  For exposure of the king’s murderer and spies, Adamarona’s attitude toward you has improved.

  Current attitude status: 347/400 − trust.

  Warning! After the death of the king, Swarm had just launched a manhunt for you.

  Current attitude status: No. 5 on the list of death.

  Chain of tasks: “Secrets of enemies” has been changed.

  Description: You have not learned the end plans of the enemy. In order to obtain more information, take part in an interrogation of the captured spies.

  Rewards are changed:

  +7000 XP;

  +7 Adamarona’s attitude.

  Additional condition: Find the bodies of the king, the aristocrats, and Shalvar Horsus.

  Reward: Depends on the number of found bodies.

  Awarded the title: “Unmasking”

  +33% to Ambush;

  +15% to Finding stashes, chests and doors.

  You have learned a skill “Revelation Sphere”

  Active skill (Apprentice).

  Creates a sphere with a 33-foot radius, which makes any enemy’s invisibility fall away.

  Duration: 1 minute

  Energy: 50

  Cooldown: 4 minutes

  Level up…”

  The long list of system notifications ran into hundreds of pages. Having hastily read them, Will approached the captain.

  “Ain’t you gonna die, Emin?”

  “Khek …” The man wanted to burst out laughing, but became wracked with coughs. A trickle of blood trickled from his mouth. “I’ll be Okay. Chanro! Chanro, alive?”

  “Yes, Sir…” a wounded wizard, lying to one side, answered. “First I’ll patch myself up, and then the others.”

  “Why are you lying like this? You'd better bust a move!”

  “Captain,” Chanro gave a long piteous cry. “I’m havin’ a rest after a heavy fight.”

  “While you’re havin’ a rest, someone else may die. Hurry up!”

  “As usual, I mustn’t rest…” the wizard complained, rising with a groan.

  “We’ll have a talk when you are patched up. I’ve got to do something.”

  Will made his way to the fallen king, looted him for his rewards. He did the same with the other spies. Four hundred gold coins, three swords, two daggers, boots and a raincoat. But all these items were not his class, except for a belt which he found on the king.

  “Spy Tartsius belt (Unique).

  Description: The unique belt created for Tartsius, one of the Latian kings.

  Characteristics:

  +30 Agility

  +40 Stamina;

  30% Disguise.

  Skill:“Two-faced” allows the shape of any being to be sent to a memory file on the belt.

  Duration: depends on the player's will.

  Replacement of shape: every 20 days if replacement does not happen during that specified period, then the following replacement can be made again in 20 days.

  Shape record: 20 Influence Points.

  Activation: 60 Energy.

  Requirements 220 Agility, 140 Strength.

  Restrictions: No.”

  “Well, it is clear now how he hid himself so skillfully…”

  Chapter 51. Doing a jigsaw puzzle

  Will glanced at the gold coins he had looted. His thoughts would not be pleasant for aristocrats and noblemen. They possessed much gold. To be 54 level he had to do very little.

  Five guardsmen from the twenty were dead. Those who had not been seriously wounded carefully gathered the comrades for burial. Will helped as best he could. He did not offer his recently bought potions, as they would likely would not have worked. Plus, it would have been a waste of valuable resources. The wizard, the only survivor from all magic support, saw to the wounded.

  Emin, looking much better, approached Raven. “Thank you. I know you did not have to participate in all this, but your help was greatly appreciated.”

  “You’re welcome. Did your king have a successor?”

  The captain did not want to talk about it, but he could not leave the question unanswered. “Our King had a daughter but… Firstly, only men have governed our country since it was founded.”

  “And secondly?”

  “She ran away two years ago and has not been found her as yet. Perhaps she’s dead and somewhere on the edge of our Floor... and if she comes back somehow, she’ll have to marry. But there’s so much bureaucratic red tape, it’s probably what caused her to disappear.”

  “So, your country will be without a governor at a time it most needs one?”

  “That is… well, yes.” Emin's expression was gloomy. Unpleasant prospects for his country loomed in the near future. The King himself had turned out to be a spy. Nearly half of the Supreme Council were enemies in disguise, so he had to look for this runaway maiden nobody had been able to find in two years.

  “Why can’t you be the King?”

  “Me? The King?” the captain replied, shocked. Such an idea had never occurred to him. Men like him were tough, ready to follow orders, and never thought of power. They were pledged to serve their country and their king.

  “I’ll do it, but who would follow me?” Will sighed sincerely and sadly.

  “Believe me, Cap, to give him the throne is the worst thing you can do,” Daltaro said, appearing next to him. “Of course, there is a slim chance your country will thrive under his rule, but taxes and duties will surely skyrocket.”

  “Ah, you…” Veins bulged on Raven’s forehead. He had built up dialogs, estimated reactions of target audiences, and this charlatan not only insisted on hindering him, but talked nonsense.

  “Captain, don’t listen to him. He was once famous, and his legend precedes him, but now…” Raven shook his head. “I suggest we sit down somewhere, far away from this place, and talk about it confidentially.”

  Emin looked at Will, then at Daltaro, then frowned. “No. He’s right. I cannot resolve such issues. Besides which, it’s the most inopportune time to fight for the throne now. We're going to call another meeting of the New Council from those who have survived, and we will discuss further steps our country will take from there. I was about to say thank you, but you interrupted me.”

  “Yes, excuse us.”

  “Thank you for the rendered help. Your actions revealed the awful truth, but the purpose of all this is not clear yet. If the Latians wanted to take over our country, they could ally us to the Swarm with the help of the false king and gradually annex our lands. But they were waiting for something, like a signal. So I would ask you to participate in the interrogation, in the hopes some data will emerge to help us figure out what to do next.”

  “Works for me,” Will said. “I have questions of my own to ask them.”

  Raven expected the interrogation to take place in a torture chamber. Instead, prisoners were brought one by one into the guards' room. They were not beaten or tortured because they had an unusually high threshold for pain, as one of the guardsmen explained.

  “Oh… That’s w
hy the Latian impersonating the librarian paid no attention to the thrust arrows at all.” he concluded. The spy had not even shouted in pain from the wounds inflicted on him. Nor had the spies who were killed today.

  So how do we interrogate them? Will thought.

  …

  The interrogation had been going on for two hours. An experienced investigator put different questions to the unmasked spies, even ones that did not relate to this specific case. For example: How many meals do you have each day? When was the last time you slept well? But all of them mixed up with more pertinent questions.

  From the very beginning, Raven realized how they interrogated suspects and criminals. It was a truth potion, but only with an external effect. The purpose was not to let a spy withdraw into himself but made him answer all the questions.

  But the spies were spies, trained to resist any drugs. This was the local analog of a lie detector. Only the range of questions were wider. It included not only those where it was necessary to answer yes or no.

  Time passed, and the Latian spies told them nothing. Will did not interfere because he did not know how to draw the truth from them. It was one thing to play a trick with their rage and devotion, as he had done before, but another to give them false hope when they were revealed and knew they would be killed anyway.

  The longer Raven listened in, the more he realized either the questions being asked were wrong, or the spies did not know the ultimate goal. The spies had been transferred as a reserve for future use. When the moment had come, they would have had no problems.

  One fact broke this theory: they had already had one of their own set up as king in this country. They could have taken over without any serious consequences. The only conclusion he could draw was that the Latians did not care about the country. So what did they want?

  Raven glanced at the prisoners, thinking aloud. “Where is the answer? The Queen has been looking for a crystal to create the Cursed Nest. That’s a fact. The crystal would give her power over other the country… people… Uhm. Human resources? Again, what for?”

  Something important occurred to him. Something they had not found yet.

  Telling his allies he would return soon, Will left the room. He needed to take a walk.

  After a short journey through corridors and halls, Raven found himself back in the meeting hall. The corpses of the humanoid life-forms had not been cleared away. The rogue looked at the dismembered body of the Latian King and wondered why he had allowed the Captain and Daltaro to decimate most of his fellow spies. Had he been trying to divert suspicion away from himself?

  He felt his brain overheating. He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, trying to relax. Then he reconstructed the events leading up to the skirmish, starting from the moment they knocked on the door of Daltaro’s old friend.

  “…my Queen lost the greatest opportunity to create the Cursed Nest.”

  Click.

  “…Nothing special, just a lot of books and a sketch of some bulky device.”

  Click.

  “…the most interesting one is “The Damned World…”

  Click.

  “…whether it was a skill, or an item, but this “Power over bodies” made one able to control both the living and the dead, making them execute any order as if they were puppets.”

  Click.

  All the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle came together, falling into place, igniting an escalatory spiral.

  Click.

  “…Where is Shalvar Horsus?”

  “…Where’s--where’s? What's it to you, you piece of man? Where he was not matter, he has already been ended. He a good source of information.”

  Click.

  “…Shalvar Horsus. Ten years ago he solved the secret of the lost heritage of the Dolf race.”

  Shalvar Horsus used the pendant for solving the mystery of the Dolf race… but it only the old librarian disclosed its true value.”

  “He had a soft spot for complicated puzzles. One might call it a hobby,”

  What had the librarian learned so the Latians decided to use him as a source of information?

  Click.

  “…Messenger?! The Time has come… Now everything is clear to me… Just what's been missing. These accursed prophecies.”

  Click. Click. Click.

  And he’s a player. He is the only one who made this flywheel spin.

  “…You, White Raven, have become a catalyst. But why was Shalvar Horsus into that stuff?”

  Click.

  His eyes opened abruptly. He ran to find Daltaro.

  Having seized the traveler by the scruff of his jacket, Raven rushed off to the old librarian’s house, muttering, “I hope I’m on the right track.”

  While Will ran, pulling his companion along, he concluded that one more shard might have been hidden in the house of the librarian. And a key…

  The body had been already taken away by the guards the captain had sent. Will stood in the middle of the room and unlimbered the pendant. “Right or wrong? C’mon!”

  Will set the completely loaded, cursed shard next to the pendant. Raven, with Daltaro, were then sucked up into the portal.

  Chapter 52. An ancient device

  This was not what he had been expecting. He had assumed the pendant was a key to a box or a chest which hid the shard’s emanations, or rather, its cursed energy.

  It was necessary for the activation of this pendant to specify the direction.

  The old man was said to be clever. He must have been a magician and would not have held such an item where everybody could see it. Shalvar Horsus's house. That was it. The spy was there for a reason. His reaction to the crystal had been odd; perhaps the spy was searching for it in Shalvar’s house. His and Daltaro’s sudden visit was unexpected, so he masked himself under the librarian’s guise. But Daltaro did not notice the substitution as the Latians have abilities connected with theft of memory. He’d have to ask the captain about it when they returned.

  “Shalvar had one more fragment of the crystal. But where is it now? And where the hell are we?!”

  While he considering the answers to his own question, more messages appeared.

  “You have used the ancient device of transfer.

  You have found the hidden properties of the pendant.

  + 2 Luck.

  Congratulations! You are the first to find the ruins of the underground city of Akros.

  +6% XP;

  +2% mental protection.

  Transition Pendant (Unique).

  Description: The ancient device of the Dolf race, allowing movement via teleport fixed on the pendant and back.

  Mental energy required: 15

  Cooldown: No.

  Level requirement No.

  Class requirements: No.”

  "At least we can return. Uhm… mental energy? Wait a moment, it is a cursed one, isn’t it?"

  He checked the shard.

  “Cursed Shard (Unique).

  Loaded: 200/200.”

  Will frowned. This was no good at all. He was considering the situation when he suddenly felt behind a suffocating pressure on his body. The shard radiated pure, barefaced anger.

  The young man snatched out the dagger and sun around, seeing the head of Daltaro being jammed into his shoulders. This frightening aura emanated from him. Raven could not see his face, but saw his companion’s shaking from rage.

  “You, goddamn idiot! Where did you drag me this time?” Daltaro held the string of his bow, which had an arrow pointed straight at Raven.

  “Hey!” The rogue said, indignant. “You are my companion, my friend, dare I say, my partner. I thought that you will be delighted to start a new adventure. Ta-da!” He gestured to the surrounding area as if it was meant as a surprise.

  “You are a dirty deceiver and a swine!” Daltaro shouted, now covered in red spots. “Can you see anything around us?”

  Will looked around and understood that he had missed this point. “Don’t kill me. I’m sure I’ll fix every
thing.”

  He applied the shard to the pendant again, and they both disappeared again.

  …

  Moments later, they stood in the house of the librarian again. Daltaro’s mouth, which had hung open, finally closed.

  Here you are. You had a little adventure. I see you’ve chilled out. It’s high time we return to the interrogation.” With that, Raven ran to the palace.

  “Do stop!” The archer yelled and followed him.

  Chapter 53. Acting the part

  When Raven and Daltaro returned, Will pulled the captain aside to probe him about the Latians’ abilities.

  Will, as it turns out, was close to the truth in his assumptions. The Latians possessed mental magic of average force, but it was enough to borrow the memories of their future victims. Their spies were trained to do this nearly since birth.

  Therefore, they could learn about a person’s life all in one minute. All their habits, behaviors, views, and one did to be who they were. It took years to be trained in this art, but it made them excellent mercenaries.

  But there was one rule: the person whose memory they copied had to be in a state of unconsciousness, preferably when he or she was sleeping. Otherwise the Latian spies would experience a boomerang effect. This mental recoil could have crippling effects on them, perhaps even kill them.