Chapter Three - God King Yu...ko?

I walked over to the rectangle of light that was the only source of illumination in this section of the sewer. A white, misty beam of light poured in at an angle, shining on the slimy water and rough bug-infested walls. The walls of the sewer were round, with the ceiling a good seven feet up. I reached up towards the light, only to find that this body was much shorter than my original one. It probably was just above five feet tall, five foot two at the most.

The sewers weren’t that full, only reaching up halfway to my knees in the deepest section, which the rectangular grate was lined up with. I looked around, but could not see anything that I could stand on to help me reach the grate.

“Hello?” A concerned voice called from above. They’d probably heard my screams. “Is someone down there?”

“Y-Yes.” I said, stuttering as I heard the soft young voice of a girl come from my mouth, “I.. I’m stuck, I can’t get out.”

“Are you hurt? What’s your name?” He asked.

“Yu- Yuko.” I caught myself just as I was about to say my actual name out of habit. It would be really strange for a girl to have the same name as the King. Shit, that was close!

“My name is Nicolas. Yuko, just wait right there, I’ll find a way to get you out.”

I hesitated as my mind started whirring into action. The man’s voice had immediately changed in timbre as he heard my voice. It was a tone that every man was aware of, though it was extremely strange to hear it directed at me. That is, the way a man talks when there is a girl in distress!

“Please hurry, it’s so dark here. I’m scared.” I called up to him with a trembling voice.

Of course, that was a bold faced lie. I was actually grinning at the end of that sentence as I heard him calling out to people around him to help him pull out the grate. No man could resist such a cry for help.

I’d definitely been at the receiving end of such an act. And now, given my situation, it was the perfect opportunity to take advantage of it. I pushed aside thoughts of depression as I came up with a plan of action.

Yes, even though this body was messed up and weak, I definitely did not plan on staying in it for any extended length of time. The first thing I needed to do was get to safety. Not just out of the sewers, but out of sight of where the assassin couldn’t find me.

I heard the sound of voices above me as several men gathered around. The voice of the first man called down, “We’re going to pull up the grate. Stand back a bit, okay?”

“Okay.” I called.

I saw several hands grip the metal grate and start heaving on the cast metal frame. With loud grunts of effort they managed to pull it out. A rope was quickly tossed down.

“Tie this around you and we’ll pull you up.” The man said.

I couldn’t see his face, but his voice was clear and confident. From the way he spoke I could tell that he was likely an educated person, probably in his early twenties. He was likely athletic, and quite charismatic to be able to gather people to help so quickly.

The thick rope was rough and heavy in my hands as I wrapped it around my waist and tied a knot. I grabbed onto the rope above me and tugged on it as I said, “I’m ready, please pull me up!”

My body felt surprisingly light as they began pulling me up. I began planning my next actions as I stared up at the approaching hole above. First and foremost I needed a safe place to hide. Just exiting the sewers wasn’t enough. If the assassin had any sense of intelligence she would immediately be using my authority as the King to launch an investigation into her former body.

She probably wasn’t expecting me to have teleported myself away. If I had cast an offensive spell at her instead of teleportation, I’d probably be a mangled mess on the castle floor right now, with her sneering above me as I bled to death. Instead, I had an opportunity to make a clean getaway while she was still figuring out exactly where I had gone.

I decided to make the man who had originally called out to me my target. He had already shown sympathy to me. I could use him to quickly get out of sight and get my bearings.

“Easy there.” Nicolas said as I reached my hands up to the open ledge.

Strong hands gripped my arms as I was pulled out completely from the sewer. It surprised me once more how light I felt as the two men who lifted me placed me gently down next to the hole.

A crowd of people had already gathered around me and the volunteer helpers, wondering what was going on. They visibly backed off as the stench of the sewage hit them. I must not have been a pretty sight, but then again it was best that no one got a good look at me.

“Thank you.” I said with shy eyes, looking at both of the strong, muscular men who had pulled me out, “Which one of you is Nicolas?”

They glanced at each other and then looked behind them to a chubby man with worn out clothes. He stepped forward, and the two other men backed off as they were clearly repulsed by the smell emanating from me.

“That’s me.” The chubby man said, looking concerned. “Are you hurt? Do you need somewhere to clean up?”

I looked up and down the man, sizing him up in a glance as I dropped the vulnerable look and frowned.

“Nope. I’m fine.” I said, turning away, “Thanks.”

There was no way that I was going to accept help from someone like him! I had standards for my helpers. There was no point associating with common NPC’s, as they would only drag me down. They lacked the resources, the intelligence- hell, even the attractiveness to be worth my time.

Nicolas stood startled for a moment as I began walking a random direction away down the street. The crowd began to part for me as I left the scene, leaving a trail of black ooze as I walked.

A startled voice called out from beside me, “H-hey, She’s a shadowkind!”

I looked at the woman, who was clearly pointing at me with wide eyes. A few gasps of shock echoed around me as another voice called out, “Someone call the guards!”

“What’s a shade doing here?”

I cursed inwardly as I reached up to my ear with my right hand to confirm their observations. Sure enough, the top of the ear was pointed. How typical.

This was bad news - By my own decree, shadowkind were explicitly banished from the capital. I needed to get out before the city guards were called. The minimum level for a guard was level 60. Even one guard would be enough to bring me down without much of a struggle.

After all what was I going to do, sew them to death?

I glanced around quickly, taking in my surroundings. I was not on a major road, but it was not far from the plaza where the crowds - and the guards - were still all gathered around. I needed to get out of sight, which meant I needed to get into the back alleys of the city.

“Get out of my way!” I growled as I took off towards a narrow side street.

The shocked crowd backed away from me, wanting nothing to do with my kind. It was similar to how the crowds parted when I was the God King, except instead of being in awe of my majesty they were being repelled by my disgusting stench and race.

For the moment it suited me just fine as it gave me the space to run.

People, doorways and random boxes and paraphernalia raced past my vision as I dashed down the narrow street. I glanced back and saw the flash of sunlight on steel as a guard in chain mail burst through the crowd.

The shadowed alley ended abruptly as I launched myself into the next street at full speed directly into a crowd of people that were heading away from the plaza. I crashed into a man who wasn’t watching where he was going, careening off of him into a group of girls as I tried to catch my balance.

“Shadowkind!” Another voice cried.

I caught three more guards glancing my way before I exited the main street into another alley. This was bad, I had no idea where I was going.

I could feel my body tiring. It wasn’t that it was particularly bad at running, in fact I felt pretty light and dextrous. But it had clearly suffered some damage during the intrusion of my castle, and used up a lot of its energy reserves in the process.

A spark erupted in my mind as I recalled the primary class of this body. It was a level 32 Shadowed! This was a class whose specialty was evasion. I was deeply familiar with their skill set, since I had spent the last three years running a campaign against them.

The crisp blue and white lines of my HUD overlapped my vision as I brought up the class panel for Shadowed. I went directly to the ability list, scanning down the names until I found one in particular - Shadow Meld.

This ability allowed the user to melt into the shadows, hiding in place. At my current level the shadow was static, meaning I wouldn’t be able to move from the spot that I chose. I also needed a shadow that took up the same “volume” as my body. Deeper shadows provided better cover than light shallow ones, since my body would still cast its own light shadow on whatever surface I used. My silhouette would stand out like a sore thumb.

The guards were trained to deal with shadowkind. I couldn’t choose my hiding spot carelessly. What’s worse was, the stench coming off my body wouldn’t be hidden by the technique. If I simply melded into a random shadow they’d find me without any trouble at all.

The afternoon sun bore down its light from above, leaving very little in the way of shadows to hide in. All the shadows that were deep enough were also too small to hide me. In addition, if anyone saw me shadow meld, they could just point it out to the guards. The longer I ran the more tired I would get and the more guards there would be chasing after me. I needed to find a solution, fast!

I dashed around a corner in the alley, losing sight of the guards momentarily as I found myself looking down another side street with more doors and paltry shadows. Although there was no one in the small stretch of alley, I could see the bright mass of the crowd illuminated by the sun just on the other end as it opened out onto a main street.

I ran a few feet into the alley, when I felt metal underneath my feet. I looked down. There was a sewer grate, and below it was the shadow of the underground.

“Oh hell no.” I groaned as I loathed the idea of going back down there.

My ears twitched as I heard the sound of ringing chainmail and boots imminently approaching. I turned my eyes to the brightly lit main street, then back down to the sewers.

My hesitation had already cost me too much time. I needed to hide!