I Tricked a God

Some distance from the river, which wound through the valley in a wide but surprisingly shallow channel, the ground suddenly split open into a deep fissure.

From a distance, the fissure looked more like a small ravine hidden among the undergrowth and folds of the terrain. Its stone walls were almost completely covered in strange turquoise moss, which had grown so thick that in places it entirely concealed the rock beneath it.

Thin mushrooms with long, flexible stalks rose directly from the moss.

Despite their slenderness, some of them reached the height of a man, swaying slightly in the occasional gusts of wind and forming something like a translucent forest above the ravine.

From above, the place looked abandoned and entirely unremarkable.

That was precisely why the tent hidden within the ravine was almost impossible to detect.

The small fabric structure had been further camouflaged with the surrounding moss, while several magical circles concealed any sound from within.

Only upon coming very close could one tell that someone was inside.

Barely discernible sounds came from the tent. So faint that even from only a few steps away, they were difficult to make out…

✦ ✦ ✦

Inside the tent were two people.

Captain Morkroft sat at a small field table, unhurriedly writing something on the sheets spread out before him. Black armor fit snugly around his body, while his weapon lay nearby—a terrifying black scythe.

Morkroft’s face was calm and focused, whereas Hector, by contrast, was openly bored.

Leaning one shoulder against one of the tent supports, he sighed lazily and idly worked a deck of playing cards with one hand, making them dance between his fingers with remarkable dexterity.

For several seconds, he silently watched Morkroft continue writing something until at last he could no longer hold back: “I don’t understand why you even came with us.”

The Captain did not even raise his head.

“Really?”

“Really,” Hector confirmed, tossing one of the cards into the air and catching it between his fingers. “Did Kael really interest you that much?”

Only then did Morkroft set down his pen and look at him.

A barely perceptible smile appeared on his lips, and he replied, “My intuition told me something interesting was going to happen. Besides, I had nothing else to do today. So I decided to come along.”

At that, Hector narrowed his eyes skeptically, continuing to idly work the cards between his fingers.

“Don’t tell me you actually took Norvin’s message seriously.”

Morkroft gave a hoarse laugh in response and, leaning back in his chair, answered confidently, “Of course not.”

Shaking his head, he picked up the pen again, though he did not resume writing just yet.

“But I have a feeling something interesting is going to happen…” Morkroft muttered.

“Like what?” Hector asked at once.

At the question, Morkroft raised an eyebrow and gave Hector a sterner look.

“What do you think I am, a seer or something?” he barked.

Hector could not help laughing at the answer and replied candidly, “To be honest, yes. Something like that.”

Setting the pen back on the table, Morkroft waved a hand dismissively and said, “Then I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. Magic is capable of many things, but predicting the future certainly isn’t one of them.”

Having said that, he fell silent for a moment, thoughtfully tapping a finger against the wooden tabletop.

“The most you can do is gather enough information and learn to notice patterns. After that, some things become fairly predictable.”

“Sounds like a very roundabout way of saying, ‘I still know what’s going to happen,’” Hector said with a smirk.

“No. It sounds like, ‘I know Norvin is bound to get himself into trouble, and Kael is far too mysterious a person.’”

“You can say whatever you like, but your intuition goes beyond the bounds of logic.”

The corner of Morkroft’s mouth curled into a smirk, and he returned to his notes, while Hector continued idly working the cards between his fingers, wondering what exactly could have interested the Captain so much about an ordinary reconnaissance mission.

But at that moment, the tent flap suddenly stirred.

Hector instantly broke off the conversation and stepped forward, reflexively thrusting out the hand holding the cards, ready to attack first if necessary.

But a moment later, the flap was pulled aside, revealing familiar figures.

Elias and Norvin entered first, with Kael appearing immediately behind them.

And while Norvin was practically glowing with happiness, as though he had just hit the biggest jackpot of his life, Elias looked unusually tense. More than that, his face still bore that strange expression people usually wore after experiencing something so incredible that their minds were still struggling to find a logical explanation for what had happened.

Noticing this, Morkroft raised an eyebrow slightly.

Giving the table a light slap with his palm as he rose to his feet, he immediately asked, “Mission complete?”

For a moment, silence hung inside the tent.

Elias looked at Kael, then finally nodded. “Everything’s done, Captain.”

Morkroft narrowed his eyes slightly.

For several seconds, he silently studied the three scouts, then shifted his gaze to Norvin and said, “And why are you so happy? Get ready to be punished for damaging the communication talisman.”

Normally, after words like those, Norvin would start making excuses before anyone even had time to accuse him of anything.

But this time was different. Instead, he puffed out his chest and grinned smugly.

“Think again! You’re the one who should get ready to write a report to the higher-ups. I’m expecting a nice fat sum of MMP in my account!”

Hector frowned slightly at his reaction.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he looked carefully first at Norvin, then at Elias and Kael, before asking skeptically, “Are you trying to mess with us or something?”

But before anyone could answer, Morkroft, who had been watching Norvin’s face closely, suddenly spoke.

“I don’t know exactly what happened…” the Captain said thoughtfully. “But there’s no lie in his words.”

At that moment, Elias stepped forward.

Taking a deep breath and seemingly suppressing the last of his emotions, he straightened and began his report in the cold, professional tone of a scout: “Thanks to Kael, the enemy barrier was destroyed and the camp eliminated. We seized as much of the explosives as we could carry and request that a cleanup squad be dispatched to the site immediately.”

Falling silent for a second, he continued, “I also ask you to take into account that we prevented the enemy from sending a message to their allies, which gives us a unique opportunity to prepare an ambush before the enemy learns that the stockpile has been lost.”

And as soon as the final words were spoken, utter silence descended upon the tent.

Hector remained standing with his arms crossed, but now his gaze was fixed on Elias.

Morkroft was silent as well.

Kael, meanwhile, chose not to interfere, merely thinking, “I hope I didn’t overdo it…”

Only Norvin continued to stand there with a satisfied smile, as though he were already counting his reward for the mission in his head.

Only after several seconds did Morkroft’s voice break the prolonged silence.

And he sounded so uncertain that Kael even tensed slightly.

“What… excuse me?” Morkroft muttered.

“I didn’t think he could be like this…” Kael thought involuntarily.

All this time, the Captain had been staring at Elias as though expecting him to burst out laughing at any moment and admit it had been a bad joke. But when it finally became clear that no one was joking, his gaze slowly shifted to Kael.

“What did you do to the barrier? Report,” Morkroft ordered.

Not wanting to test the Captain’s patience, Kael immediately stepped forward and said, “It’s difficult to explain, but I’ll try.”

Raising one hand with the back of his hand facing upward to mimic a dome, he traced a finger across it, indicating the path of movement.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Any dome-shaped barrier consists of several anchor points that are constantly moving…”

But the next moment, Morkroft abruptly cut him off. “I know that. I’m talking about something else.”

At the same time, a barely perceptible wave of pressure seemed to roll through the tent, causing Kael to retreat half a step.

“What a terrifying aura…” flashed through Kael’s mind as he felt as though a blade had been pressed to his throat.

But the next moment, Morkroft flinched, realizing that he had unconsciously released part of his aura.

“My apologies,” the Captain said firmly and immediately suppressed his aura, restoring the usual atmosphere inside the tent.

“Get to the point,” the Captain added, never taking his eyes off Kael.

Kael merely nodded, understanding that it was better not to dwell on what had happened.

Sticking to the version he had managed to come up with on the way here, Kael continued his explanation, “I have an ability that lets me reach a state of extreme concentration. When I’m studying or training, for example.”

Still holding his hand in front of him, he once again traced a finger across the imaginary dome.

“I spent an entire hour observing the barrier with absolute concentration, all so I could track how the main mana flows moved within the structure.”

Morkroft remained silent, not interrupting, so Kael continued, “When I enter a state of extreme concentration, time seems to speed up for me. It’s rather difficult to explain this state…”

For several seconds, he considered his words, searching for the most plausible phrasing, then looked the Captain directly in the eyes and added, “I suppose this ability is something along the lines of your strange intuition. It’s impossible to understand how it works, but somehow, it does…”

Hector, standing a short distance away, merely stared at him, his jaw slowly dropping as he struggled to find something to say. Several times, he even opened his mouth, shifting his gaze between Kael and Morkroft, but each time he said nothing, as though he simply couldn’t wrap his head around what he had heard.

Morkroft himself, meanwhile, looked far more thoughtful.

Continuing to watch Kael closely and occasionally tapping his fingers against the edge of the table, the Captain seemed, for the first time in the entire conversation, to have encountered something he could not fully understand.

His ability to sense lies seemed to be telling him one thing, while his own conclusions pointed in an entirely different direction.

Leaning forward slightly and bracing one palm against the tabletop, Morkroft silently pondered for several seconds before murmuring, “You’re not lying… But your truth is slightly distorted as well…”

Realizing that Morkroft was right again, Kael made no attempt to deny it and merely nodded.

A moment later, the familiar eerie smile began to spread across Morkroft’s face, while a strange excitement lit his eyes.

“Each of us has our own secrets…” he finally said, continuing to look directly at Kael. “What matters is that you’ve done something truly unique.”

For several seconds, silence once again hung inside the tent. Morkroft seemed to be turning new strategies and missions over in his mind.

Then, straightening as the smile finally faded from his face, the Captain asked in a completely serious tone, “Can you repeat that trick with the barrier?”

Kael had already opened his mouth to answer, but at the last moment, he stopped himself.

“It’s better not to lie to Morkroft…” flashed through his mind. “I need to choose my words very carefully.”

For several seconds, he considered his answer, understanding that the Captain was not asking out of idle curiosity. What exactly he said next could very well determine how the squad viewed this ability and what expectations they would place on him in the future.

With that realization, Kael merely nodded and answered honestly, “To say anything for certain, I need to try breaking a few more barriers.”

After a moment’s thought, he nevertheless decided to add what he truly felt, “But if I go by what I feel… I’m confident I can. Especially with a little practice.”

Hearing that answer, Morkroft silently studied him for several seconds, as though evaluating not so much the words themselves as what his instincts told him about them.

“Good answer.”

With those words, Morkroft sharply swept his hand through the air, pulling from his spatial ring a strange stone tablet the size of a small book and a long stylus that looked as though it had been carved from a single piece of red crystal.

Without even glancing at the objects, he immediately tossed them to Elias.

“Write a detailed report. Immediately.”

Elias caught both objects in midair with practiced ease and merely nodded.

Settling the tablet in his left hand, he poured a little mana into the crystalline stylus. Its tip flared with a soft scarlet light, and he immediately began writing.

Meanwhile, Morkroft had already moved on to the next task.

Taking a communication talisman from an inner pocket, one noticeably more complex and massive than the one Norvin had burned earlier, he activated it with a brief pulse of mana and spoke almost immediately, “Darius, take your men and move out to Sector B-212 immediately. Set up a barrier and prepare an ambush. You know my location.”

While Morkroft issued orders and Elias filled line after line on the stone tablet with uncharacteristic speed, Hector continued shifting his gaze between the Captain, Kael, and the report taking shape before his eyes.

Apparently, he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around what was happening.

For several seconds, he silently watched the scene before finally blurting out, “Holy shit… That’s one hell of a rookie they sent us…”

Norvin immediately burst out laughing. “You should see your face right now, Hector. I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

At those words, Hector visibly grew embarrassed and immediately tried to adopt a more impassive expression.

“What kind of nonsense are you talk—” he began, but was cut off before he could finish.

“Yesterday you were laughing at Lumi,” Norvin continued slyly, grinning with satisfaction. “But maybe today your record will finally be broken.”

“Record? What are you talking about?” Kael immediately asked.

Norvin promptly threw an arm around his shoulders and, with the air of a man about to reveal an extremely important secret, replied, “Thanks to his tricks, this fox managed to go from Recruit rank to Junior Serpent rank in just one week.”

Nodding toward Hector, he continued, “And no one’s been able to break that record for years, which does wonders for his ego.”

“Not ‘thanks to tricks,’ but thanks to hard work,” Hector corrected dryly.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s exactly why half the squad still tells stories about how you tricked ten other recruits into working for you.”

“It was a military stratagem,” Hector objected.

“Of course, of course,” Norvin replied with obvious sarcasm.

But at that moment, Kael wasn’t concerned with records but with something else entirely. Hearing this exchange, Kael almost immediately understood what Norvin was getting at.

Looking at him skeptically, he cautiously asked, “You mean we earned enough to…”

But he never got to finish the thought. Elias’s voice instantly drew everyone’s attention. “Done, Captain. Your turn.”

As he handed Morkroft the stone tablet and red crystal stylus, he looked as though he had just completed a full-fledged combat operation rather than written a report.

Morkroft silently accepted them and immediately began reading.

As his eyes ran over the lines, he began muttering something under his breath, occasionally raising his eyebrows slightly in surprise.

It seemed Morkroft had barely begun reading the report before he had already analyzed it in full.

His gaze raced across the lines while his fingers rapidly wrote something on the surface of the tablet.

“Judging by the description of the camp and its value… eight hundred MMP.”

Having said this, he made another note and continued almost immediately, “The amount of explosives captured and their strategic value… one thousand seven hundred MMP.”

At those words, Hector visibly grimaced.

Clicking his tongue quietly, he turned away, as though he had suddenly developed a deep dislike of arithmetic.

Norvin, on the other hand, looked as though he might take flight from sheer happiness.

Without taking his eyes off the tablet in the Captain’s hands, he had even stopped blinking.

Meanwhile, Morkroft finished another entry and, raising his gaze to the three standing before him, calmly added, “Considering the potential value of your actions in the coming battle, as well as the opportunity they’ve created to organize an ambush, you are entitled to an additional bonus of one thousand two hundred MMP.”

And the moment those words were spoken, Hector sharply slapped his thigh and cursed in irritation, “Damn it!”

Then he immediately stepped forward and held out his hand to Kael.

“Congratulations, Kael. Though I can’t say it’s entirely heartfelt.”

Kael merely gave a crooked smile, not quite sure how to react to such words, and shook the offered hand.

Hector unexpectedly tightened his grip a little and, after giving Kael’s hand several firm shakes, continued in a noticeably more good-natured tone, “But don’t get cocky. The record for advancing from Junior Serpent to Senior Serpent belongs to me too.”

Having said that, he winked and added with exaggerated seriousness, “If you break that one too, then I’ll be genuinely angry.”

At those words, Norvin raised his eyebrows in surprise, muttering, “And here I thought you’d react differently…”

Shifting his gaze from Hector to Kael, he narrowed his eyes skeptically for several seconds, as though checking whether they were playing some trick on him, then slapped Kael on the back and laughed, “Looks like Hector likes you, Kael.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hector grumbled at once.

But their conversation was interrupted by Morkroft once again.

Looking up from the tablet and sweeping his gaze over the three scouts, the Captain unexpectedly smirked and said, “Thank you for your service, boys. I certainly didn’t expect events to take a turn like this.”

With those words, he moved his hand quickly and surprisingly smoothly over the surface of the stone tablet, as though inscribing an intricate, elaborate signature.

Finishing the final flourish, Morkroft lowered his hand.

And almost immediately, the surface of the tablet flared with a soft light.

Kael’s gaze lingered on it as he noticed the lines of scarlet symbols gradually beginning to fade. It was as though the recorded information wasn’t simply disappearing, but being transmitted elsewhere, leaving the stone behind.

Only a few seconds passed before all the writing dissolved completely, leaving the tablet looking like an ordinary piece of stone once again.

But the moment that happened, Norvin was already fumbling for his token, muttering eagerly, “Come on… Come on… How much am I getting…”

“Are you an idiot or something?” Hector replied, rolling his eyes. “You earned three thousand seven hundred MMP between the three of you. After the squad’s tithe is deducted, you’ll get one thousand one hundred ten MMP.”

To which Norvin merely cursed indignantly, continuing to stare at his token, “Oh, shut up! Don’t ruin the fun for me!”

“MMP gets credited that quickly?” Kael wondered.

However, he didn’t have time to ask the question aloud.

At that moment, Kael suddenly heard a quiet hiss from around his chest and instinctively lowered his gaze.

His own token had begun to glow faintly, while the lettering indicating his rank now shimmered with a dim light.

The word “Recruit” slowly began to shift, as though it were made not of metal but of liquid paint.

Several symbols began to disappear, while others immediately appeared in their place, gradually forming a new inscription.

Before Kael even had time to react, “Junior Serpent” had already replaced “Recruit,” its glow fading until only an ordinary engraving remained on the token.

“Whoa…” Kael muttered in surprise. “To create a network like this…”

Seeing his reaction, Hector explained, “When I saw it for the first time, I was pretty shocked too. They say the system was created by the First Emperor himself. And no one knows where the central node that distributes ranks and MMP is located, or where the information from all the tokens is stored.”

Morkroft merely smirked. Shifting his gaze from the token to Kael himself, he said calmly, “Congratulations on your promotion, kid.”

Grunting under his breath, the Captain thought for several seconds before adding, “I was sure we’d have to spend a long time training you and getting you up to speed at first.”

His gaze drifted over those present.

“But it seems things are turning out exactly the opposite.”

Clasping his hands behind his back and rocking slightly from heel to toe, Morkroft continued in a more thoughtful tone, “With your arrival, our squad will have to reconsider some of its established strategies and tactics…”

After those words, silence reigned in the tent for a moment.

Even Norvin finally tore his gaze away from his newfound wealth and looked at the newcomer.

Kael, however, understood perfectly well that what interested them now was not him personally, but the possibilities his ability opened up.

So instead of wasting words, he merely inclined his head slightly and replied calmly, “I’ll be glad to serve the Doomgrin Squad and the army as a whole.”

Hearing this, Morkroft nodded in satisfaction. “That’s the right attitude.”

Then his gaze lingered briefly on Kael’s token once again.

“I suspect you won’t remain a Junior Serpent for long either…”