“Weak?” Flaygray snorted. “Shazz leveled his troops up pretty well.”
“You’ll get even stronger. Objections? I don’t get it, don’t you want to get stronger?”
“Sure we do,” Nega answered peevishly, licking her lips. The succubus was nervously flicking her tail. Something was bothering her. “And we’ll defend the temple without regard to our own lives, never fear, boss. But you said ’five guardians’? Where’s the fifth?” She looked this way and that, counting off on her fingers. “Me, Flay, Anf, Ripta. Four.”
“Sharkon will be the fifth.”
“But why? When the Sleeping God returns our life to us, the monster will simply disappear. Maybe it would be better to…” The succubus slowiy ran her finger along her throat.
Anf heard her and broke away from Iggy for a moment to chitter something indignant. Ripta supported him with a crackling squeal. Flaygray coughed to draw my attention.
“My colleagues believe that our brainless friend deserves at least a chance. If Tiamat can return his life, then he probably won’t be so kind, and may immediately try to swallow us all, but at least then he’ll have a worthy send-off.”
“Or we will… And I don’t care if it’s worthy or not, it’s a risk. You love creating problems out of thin air, you old fart!” Nega snapped, shaking her head. “What else should I expect from a drunken and sentimental old demon crusty with sand? Diablo with you. Do what you want!”
Ignoring the angry succubus, I appointed her and the other guards as commanders of the undead squadrons.
I didn’t wait for the army to reach the temple. I’d already missed school yesterday. A second day’s absence wouldn’t be forgiven. I needed to get a good nights sleep, and be ready to hit the books with a fresh head. I also hoped that the dismal foggy memories of the events in the Nether would pale, that I’d stop having nightmares.
Before I left, I walked around the temple grounds. Gyula told me that everything would be restored by morning—the builders planned to work without rest. The guardians went to meet the dead troops to get started with leveling up right away. The sand rippled on a distant dune, showing Crash’s movement underground… Wait!
What better time than now to level up my pets? Along with Iggy, I walked away from the temple and summoned Storm. Kicking up sand with her mighty wingbeats, the dragoness landed nearby. Her bluish-black skin covered in mithril plates sparkled, and although I couldn’t smell it, I was certain it smelled of ozone.
Once my pets were assembled, I pulled out a legendary scroll…
Of One Blood…
A legendary onetime-use scroll.
Unique item.
On activation, equalizes your pets’level with yours.
…and, breaking the seal without hesitation, I activated it. The figures of my pets—a huge fearsome dragon, a predatory dragonfly-like insect with a huge stinger sticking out of the lower segment of his body, a monstrous segmented worm gleaming with diamond dust—all lit up with the flashes of levelups.
The logs replaced each other at a furious rate, reporting not only my pets’ increase in level, but also their new skills. I had time to lament the fact that my mechostrich wasn’t leveling up. It would have made a decent small siege tank.
My empty thoughts lasted around twenty seconds, but there was still a long way to go before my pets’ light show ended. So I got started on a not particularly important, but unfinished task.
The desire to see everything through to the end pursued me as ever, forcing me to read the last unopened notifications. They were all in the All hail the hero series—for three First Ever achievements. Each gave me three thousand reputation with all the main global factions and a bunch of fame.
All the same as usual. Out of sheer habit, I decided to go down in history as ‘a player who wishes to remain nameless…’ And that’s when it happened. Both the achievements for reaching level four hundred and five hundred gave me a new version of All hail the hero: All hail the hero!
Would you like to make your name public? Doing so will give +1000 reputation with all the main global factions and +5000 fame.
Attention! The achievement First Ever: Level 500! is of great significance to all Disgardium. All sentients must know the hero’s name. You carmot refuse to make your Jiame public.
Global rwtification in: 00:00:09… 00:00:08… 00:00:07…
Seven seconds passed. The sky darkened, fanfares trumpeted and silver bells began to ring over the whole world.
All hail the hero!
Herald Scyth has performed a feat that will go down through history! He is the first in the world to reach level 500!
People of Disgardium! Glory to Herald Scyth! All hail the hero! Hail Scyth!
Without reading to the end, I hit the logout button. The door chime rang while the intragel was still draining off me. An unfamiliar fat man spoke clearly into the camera.
“Alex, it’s me, your uncle Esteban. Your dog brought me the slippers.”
That was the code phrase that Hairo Morales had forced me to learn by heart.
I opened the door. The man quickly entered, pushing me aside and locking the door, then touched his skin just behind his ear. His figure morphed, the holographic mask of a stranger’s face disappeared. It was Hairo himself. I wasn’t surprised. The security officer had warned me that he wouldn’t be leaving me alone anymore. Only I never suspected that it would start tonight, and that Hairo would turn up in a disguise.
“What the hell, Alex?” he said, shaking his head. “Not a good idea! Pack your things. Grab some warm clothes too.”
The April weather was warm enough, but I didn’t bother asking questions for now.
“Five minutes,” I nodded and ran off to pack a backpack.
“You have two!” the security officer shouted after me. “Willy’s picking up your friends, they already know. And don’t forget to put the house in
