Tyrants of Earth - The Legend of Artigan

"Have you had the taste of Amperdon steak? It is a culinary impossibility. The meat tingles in your mouth as it melts with every chew. And the texture, oh goodness. This is the taste of magic! The taste of the divine! I only wish to make the experience accessible to all!"

- Jules Monet

*the French farmer when first interrogated about how he had managed to acquire live amperdons on Earth. The man would only talk about the taste and preparation of the creatures.

Four days after The Realm resynced with Earth.

A young adventurer fell, tumbling down a hill as the roar of a monster echoed from above. The man righted his roll as he kicked up then spun in the air before landing heavily on one leg. His other leg was bloody and lightly reddened from the constant rubbing against the sharp grass.

He wore rough mismatched medieval armor that had dents everywhere. Armor that had been put in its paces and wouldn’t have looked out of place from a soldier in the Trials. It had to have been a [Warrior].

Their team came running after the injured adventurer. Maintaining a bit of a distance to show they were friendly. Enzo waved and smiled, the adventurer was human and looked a little young

“Hoi! Are you alright there?”

“Ouch, yeah. I’m alright, just messed up a little, that’s all.”

Another roar echoed from above the hill as their team tensed.

“Where’s your team? Do you know if that amperdon herd has an alpha?”

“Ah, I’m a fourther grinding out skills. And no, there’s no alpha in that pack, I don’t think they saw where I went flying. Amperdons and bad eyesight, you know.”

The four adventurers that had come to rescue a fellow adventurer visibly relaxed at that. A herd without an alpha wasn’t really a threat. They also didn’t think the fourther grinding out skill progression was a threat to the four of them either. Especially when he was already in such rough shape.

His teammate spoke without thinking.

“Grinding out skills alone like this, you gotta be desperate.”

Enzo wanted to slap his [Rogue].

“Lars! Don’t be an ass.”

The fourther laughed and waved them off. The casual demeanor suddenly put up warning bells but quickly went away when the adventurer winced and put an arm on his shoulder.

“No problem. Yeah my team found a better [Warrior], you know how it is.”

“Ah, asshole team members, can’t relate.”

“Lars! Sorry, he was never spanked by his parents, what’s your name, adventurer?”

“John, John Furself”

The leader of the group got up to the fairly young fourther, he stretched out his hand, the other adventurer looked at the hand and paused. Then he shook it, favoring one leg.

“Well, John, I’m Enzo, leader of Fighting Fancy. Have you heard about recent Guild news?”

“Been slightly out of touch in the past few days, sort of missed my check in. What’s up?”

“Ah, that makes sense. There’s been some unusual migration, we’re trying to figure out what’s going on but it’s getting messier. I wouldn’t engage unless you’re confident escaping multiple herds.”

“Well shit. Thanks for the heads up.”

“Do you need an escort?”

The rest of Fighting Fancy shifted uncomfortably at their leader’s words. None of them really wanted to take on a sudden escort mission now. The fourther just waved them off.

“Nah, I have healing potions. Just don’t want to use them. It’s about time for me to check back in. Thanks for the info, I really appreciate it.”

“Alright then, good luck and safe travels.”

The wounded fourther started limping off in a different direction.

“Hey wait!”

The solo adventurer froze in his tracks and slowly turned around. Enzo pointed to the direction the fourther was heading.

“That way’s a leveled zone, if you want to head to the closest free zone portal it’s that way.”

“Ah yeah, I forgot I’m not in a thirder anymore. Silly me.”

Enzo watched the [Warrior] limp off. It wasn’t rare for people to be grinding out skills in lower sectors, it normally meant that they weren’t as confident in themselves, or didn’t have a team they could rely on. Though something felt off about that assessment.

“Hey John! Are you joining the pre-class tournament?”

The man turned around, he gave a self deprecating smile and pointed at his whole broken gear.

“Do I look like I’d get far in the tourney? Nah, I’ve just filled up my Trial slots, that’s all.”

Now Enzo felt like a bit of a jackass.

“Ah, sorry. Well, you’ll see us compete, we plan on going far while blitzing it there. We’d already be fourthers if it weren’t for Guild work. Come see us then and maybe we can have a friendly spar.”

“Well, I might just do that. I’ll cheer for you guys.”

The four adventurers saw the fourther bound off. He moved surprisingly quickly for an injured adventurer, but that made sense. He was a fourther after all.

“Man grinding out skills like that solo, dude must be desperate.” Tenin, their [Mage], commented.

Lars put his hands behind his head.

“Eh, he’s a fourther messing around in the third sector. We should all be able to solo a herd by then.”

Enzo chucked a piece of grass at Lars.

“You’re such an ass, come on.”

–

Sector Three was most famous for its rolling hills. Long waist-high grass shimmered in the sunlight as wind rippled through it. From far away it might look like waves on a beautiful emerald ocean.

Up close?

It was a terrifying sight of hazardous flowing blade-like grass that could cut the skin of ordinary humans. Or even third realm [Mages].

Yeah, [Mages] had it rough.

It wasn’t that Emerald Hills made up the majority of Sector Three. After all, Sector Three was estimated to be slightly smaller than the size of Eurasia. Different areas had their own environments, climates and monsters of their own.

The reason why Emerald Hills were considered the main attraction? The sharp shiny grass grew like weeds.

There were already concerns about patches of grass that had begun to spread into the sectors that neighbored it. Hell, you could even find patches of emerald grass growing on Earth, the seeds tracked by irresponsible adventurers using system portals.

With the tall grass came along massive roving herds. Monsters that grazed on the fields were aplenty. The abundance of their preferred foods meant that herds could get dangerously big, sometimes so big that adventurers in the eighth realm had to be called to cull the numbers.

It wasn’t uncommon for third realm adventurers to stay the hell away from free zones, sticking in leveled zones where the environment was a little more stable.

Enzo’s team probably had quests to make sure the herds weren’t collapsing into the leveled zones all at once. The system portals in there could only be protected by lower realm adventurers, and they didn’t tend to be the best at defensive sieges.

Despite the potential for things to go disastrously wrong, the task was still given to third realm adventurers. A higher realm adventurer sweeping all the issues themselves would gain little achievements.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Meanwhile a quest that actually mattered would give great achievements to an appropriate realm adventurer.

Ryan kept limping forward as someone flew overhead. They were in formation with another group of fliers. He gave them a weak wave, pretending to be friendly.

Those fliers were his biggest concern. Though the chance of them realizing that he was the great and terrible Artigan was slim. Ryan wasn’t wearing the mask, nor would his Epic’s passive impact adventurers that were watching his slow ass limp across the sector.

Though his Epic triggering a fear effect had been the greatest concern with Fighting Fancy. Ryan had seen them coming and had to quickly come up with a plan to look as weak as possible. He was pretty sure they almost saw through it too.

Now that had been shit luck, the chance of meeting another third realm team should have been abysmal.

Ryan walked up to the marker he left with a spear. It was barely visible among the rolling grass. He picked up the hidden bag containing all his other gear. Among them was his [Rogue] outfit and the legendary mask. All tucked away while he went around with his real face.

Remembering the handshake he chuckled.

“Complacent and stupid.” Thɪs chapter is updated by novel-fire.net

Fighting Fancy hadn’t noticed anything wrong. It had been so tempting to show them the error of their ways.

He could have killed them all… Seriously a handshake?

Ryan could have pulled in the leader and slit his throat in less than a second. The [Mage] would have died second, no, third. He’d kill one of their [Rogues] during the surprise and do a [Volatile Antimagic Throw] when their [Mage] instinctively put up a barrier.

“So dumb, don’t they know a dangerous blacklister could be stalking in the long grass?”

Well, Artigan was here to teach them all that lesson. He started to make his way to Lazhen, a hum following his ‘limp’.