Tyrants of Earth - The Legend of Artigan

Everyone loved a heroic story. Saving a queen from a monster was a classic. Saving a queen that was fleeing from a giant abomination created by a mad king? Now that would have turned heads if that had been your Trial Quest for your Fifth Trial.

Except the story hadn’t been a Fifth Trial, it had happened in the real world.

Multiple bodycams were edited together to show the tale. First of Valee’s heroic blaze into the battlefield. Gliding across the blighted ground in a blur of green, causing sonic booms where she went.

Everyone else was failing to hold back the flesh titan. The worst scenario about to happen. A queen’s life about to be cut short.

Cue back to Valee who had arrived in the nick of time to save the day.

Now that was a tale for the ages.

Something like that would have made headlines even during normal times. Now this was being pushed by the Adventurer’s Guild. Meanwhile most major operations were still under heavy information blackout.

So it was no wonder why Valee had dominated the news for the past two days. Even two days was truly not enough to get all the footage out there and digested by the public.

But something else had completely taken over as the top spot.

Because you know what else was just as spicy?

Finding out that the newly minted [Strongest in the Fourth Realm] had a secret, mysterious lover. Not only that, she and this mysterious lover had gone through a very public, very romantic tear jerking scene.

The orc grabbed the mysterious and very worried human by the chest.

‘Shut up. You’re not the only competent adventurer around. Every second I spend listening to you is a second lost heading to the battlefield.’

The heroine kissed her worried lover before dashing off to save the day.

Ryan himself could not have plotted a better way to become famous. Madness. That was what was happening in the realmnet. This hot scene had pushed Valee’s heroics out of the way and had claimed the top spot in trending.

It was the perfect scene to catch the hearts of both the hard-boiled adventuring fans and the hopeless romantics alike.

And now everyone was digging up everything they could about Ryan Robinson.

“Oh my god.” Ryan said in horror.

“Oh my god!” Clara said, though in a completely different tune.

She was giggling like mad, watching the scene. Clara hadn’t paid attention to the realmnet since Pinkie had arrived, and this had only shot up like a bullet in the past day.

Someone had to have been fucking with him. It had to be the Witch Tyrant, no wait she was probably too busy. The Secretary? Surely not, she didn’t seem much like a prankster.

For a moment Ryan thought that maybe this was simply coincidence. After all, Portal rooms had security and maybe the adventurers in there probably needed permission before posting it online. Then he threw that idea away.

The video that had gotten viral had been edited.

It had the kiss and Valee leaving heroically. It didn’t have her asking him if he was single. The full scene was out there but a lot of people would see this video and see them as passionate lovers.

Someone had edited this for maximum effect. But who?

Milock paused the video at the close-up kissing scene as Clara squealed in congratulations and Ryan put his face in his hands.

Mirelda was trying hard not to peer over from the plate of food she had stolen from the Dubois Mansion's family pantry. They were all ignoring her and she seemed mostly content to be free, eating, drinking and watching the entertainment.

‘You're not the only competent adventurer around.’

“Stop replaying it!”

Both Milock and Clara laughed as Ryan grabbed the laptop and scrolled through the comments. A post had been pinned to the top, directing them into another page where all of the realmnet were collating information about him.

And they had found everything they could.

“Oh fuck.”

Half a day and all the realmnet sleuths had scraped up every single detail of his life. An interesting tale of a talented swordsman that had missed the cut against better-prepared foes. Even his match history was recorded and analysed. His job at the Manaburger to the shooting and then his abrupt dropping out of college.

The focus though was mainly on the recent snippets. They’d found that he was the one in the slightly viral clip of when Chester had been eating away at Clara’s hair. Then someone found a video where he had been seen walking with the Secretary and into her car.

Now the realmnet sleuths were going crazier. ‘Competent hidden mysterious adventurer that had caught the eye of the Secretary’ was being pushed everywhere.

He did see a few comments linking the timing with Artigan but nobody was truly floating the idea that Ryan and Artigan were the same person. Perhaps because the idea that someone had been wearing a mask that could change both your face and voice from the very start was ridiculous.

It was also impossible to believe that the heroic Valee would kiss the dastardly villain Artigan. Someone who had ruined her Trials and made her previous team break up.

The real problem was that there were zero records of any of his accomplishments or recorded attempts at the Trials. He still felt like it was only a matter of time before someone truly connected the dots.

The main hall door opened, Grettfield reentering the mansion with an amused smile dancing across her face. Ryan slammed the laptop shut and tried to greet her with a smile.

She knows I’m Artigan.

At the very least, she had heard the tail end of the conversation in the interrogation with Mirelda. While his friends had done the responsible thing in calling her, it did still suck that another powerful person knew such a huge secret about him.

She gave him a little wink.

“There’s no need to worry. I am quite good at being discreet, unlike our little [Witch] over there, stuffing her face with no manners.”

Mirelda flushed as she stopped chewing and just swallowed the massive amount of food in her cheeks. She coughed once and tried to act prim and proper.

“Matron Grettfield, I apologize for my conduct and inability to keep decorum.”

Grettfield waved her hand. “There is no need to apologize to me. It is no longer my coven who’s secrets you have so freely spilled to outsiders.”

Mirelda looked crestfallen at that, as if she had still been holding hope that Grettfield would return to the coven.

Ryan wanted to move onto other things, namely getting out of here in secret so he and his friends could talk in peace.

“Is there still a crowd out there?”

Grettfield nodded. “A few curious adventurers and some bolder paparazzi are still at the gates. None are quite willing to trespass into a dragonslayer’s home.

Ryan groaned. “How do they even know we’re here?”

“Neither you nor Valee were quiet while moving with a priority one alarm. Many have simply connected the dots. I recommend you get used to traveling on the adventuring platforms.”

There were little platforms placed on the first or second storey of every building, designed for adventurers to travel through quickly when needed. It did require a level of alertness and skill to use and all [Warriors] that had recently risen in realms were banned from using them.

This tale has been pilfered from NovelFire. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“That’s not going to work with my friends around.”

“Indeed.” Grettfield hummed. “Chester?”

The book familiar flew down from the ceiling, eliciting a glare from Clara and providing a reminder to Ryan. He needed to be sweeping his surroundings with [Spellweave Perception], even on Earth.

“Be a dear and help the civilians get home, will you?”

Chester took one look at Clara, rippled its pages together, then turned to the other two, it clapped its pages together, casting a spell and capturing all three of his friends in one swoop.

[Levitation]

Clara started flailing in the air as gravity lost hold on her.

“Whoaa.”

Both Milock and Clara were initially disoriented at the sudden lack of gravity, trying to maneuver around with the spell cast on them. Barry just had his arms crossed and was unimpressed with the whole affair.

Chester flipped to another page and all three of them turned invisible.

“This is so cool, I’m flying and invisible. Wheee.”

Ryan activated [Spellweave Perception] tracking his friends in the air. Though he had a distinct feeling that the skill wasn’t working half as well as when he had been in The Realm. He could only see vague outlines of his friends and had to focus if they moved too quickly.

He checked his system screen.