Power. What is it? Is it the strength you give when you slash your sword at your enemy? The fear a king's command raises when he shouts at his subordinates? Maybe the forbidden magic of a magician slowly pulled it back to the earth, despite a power placed walls to keep it away from mortals.

 

Without a doubt, all of the above are powers, and each has its use, but it isn't limited by what you can show in daylight. A sword might be fearsome in the eyes of the enemy, a king's man can be loyal enough to die for him, and a magician's powers can challenge ones of mythic, but they are nothing against the real power. Knowledge and manipulation. A dark knowledge combined with a couple of drops of deadly poison and a dagger silently waiting in the darkness of the night.

 

The powerful knights whose battle cries tremble entire armies will die from a poisonous wine offered by a friendly face.

 

Kings can be tricked and dethroned by their keys to power if whoever brought the king to power feels the new puppet will pay them better.

 

And the magicians who studied all their life needs only one little mistake in their ultimate spell to be killed by the fraction caused by the error.

 

But for all of these to work as desired, one must learn to know the darkest secrets and the exploitable parts of its targets and learn the art of puppeteering for the little pawns who don't even know whose show they are in, so their master can be sure they will play their role perfectly.

 

Inside a castle built at the edge of the kingdom, away from most humans, lives a puppeteer. A woman in expensive clothing is holding a gold goblet with a wine with a cost per bottle high enough to buy enough supplies to feed a peasant for months.

 

Known as the lady of the valley, she is an old drug lord who lost most of her power and influence. She turned from someone who can make the most powerful lords of the empire beg for favors to someone who hides.

 

Yet, all of that got taken away from her. It fills her with anger, but more importantly, a lust for revenge. She has one goal, taking revenge on people who did wrong to her, people who turned that mighty person to hide in the corners of the world like a mouse, the people who forced her to hide on the edge of the world to save her skin!

 

But one who has risen to power once knows how to gamble to do it twice.

 

"Alexandros, my dear, it's been some time since I last saw you, right? When was it, back when you and your friends were out playing a game of adventure? Isn't it?"

 

A man with olive skin and a long beard nodded. "Yes, Lady Maude, it was around fifteen years before." He is sitting on a chair in the middle of a room with no windows. There is only a gate without a door to enter and nothing else. Away from civilization, away from anything that might save him. He doubts if even the gods could hear his screams.

 

"Ah, fifteen years before! What times those were, the monster outbreaks around the empire and lack of heroes sent by gods increased the demand of adventurers eager to fight against them." Lady slowly moved her fingers on the man's shoulder. "Do I remember it right?

 

"Yes, Lady Maude."

 

"Don't answer me only with, yes, my dear. We are no strangers. You know me. I know you." She tapped twice on her goblet. "By the way, happy marriages to your daughter. Send her my regards." She said with a cheerful but threatening voice. For her, a human's life has no value beyond what it can serve her.

 

Alexandrosu's face turned white. "But how." The lady was still strong, but wasn't she four kingdoms away from the isolated town he and his family chose as their home?

 

"My dear, become weakened, not weak. There is a huge difference despite how likely it sounds. I still have ears and eyes all around the empire. Just because I can't pull a string or two and make the strongest man leading kingdoms do what I want doesn't mean I cannot do anything."

 

A silence took the room for some time till Lady Maude decided to talk again.

 

"Oh, I should have waited for you to say that to me, but I was a little excited since your wife looked so happy to get a grandchild. How tragic it would be for her to miss something so good." She made sure to be clear this time, so her victim wouldn't ask another needless question and steal more of her precious time.

 

Alexandros groveled to Lady Maude. "What I must do."

 

"I always liked you more since you are smart enough to understand things before I say. Now, something is happening around this kingdom, two children of a king who is stupid enough to ignore me. I handle the most, but you got a be sure they are unprotected."

 

"It is my command."

 

"Good boy. Now leave. I have things to do."

                                    *****

All my muscles are screaming at me. I have an unbearable pain spread across all my body. I suppose I stole the life force of this thing or something like that, and I have that painful growth again. My mind is mixed about magic and the voice guiding me, but I am sure about one thing, I hate this process of change that makes me want to rip my limbs away, even though it makes me stronger. 

 

Still, I feel a strange satisfaction, and it is slowly overcoming the pain. Maybe it is because I defeated such a beast, maybe because of the thing I absorbed, or perhaps I am developing weird kinks. But I encountered a powerful monster and went to fight against it with all I got.

 

And I survived. I defeated another enemy and got granted the chance to live till my next challenge in this life. The dead monster in front of me is the ultimate proof of my victory, and the broken weapon in my hand is proof of the battle I gave.

 

I pushed myself up and moved to the skeletal spider. After defeating such an enemy, not taking a trophy would be stupid. A leg will do good enough. Plus, it can even be used as a weapon if needed.

 

I looked at the spider's leg. The top joint connecting it to the main body looks breakable, perhaps if I twist it around. "Like this. Agh." I lifted the leg and turned it around. Then press it down with my leg. 

 

The spider's leg cracked at first, and after I pressed it down with all my body weight, the joint finally shattered, and it fell.

 

"Look at this." I grabbed my trophy from the ground. The spider's leg has an almost half a meter upper part and three-quarters of a meter long lower, with a serrated blade. It has a secondary joint connecting the lower and upper legs, but if I can find a way to stop them from moving, I can use this leg as a saw or a weapon. 

 

Now, I don't have something to carry everything I could get, and I doubt this place will have monsters again. So, I will leave what I don't think is valuable for now and take what I must. One leg from the spider is enough, as an example.

 

I felt a cold breeze on my face. The door behind me is still closed, which means the mechanism sound I heard was of a door leading outside. After taking a look around, I spotted it, a path leading to a bright place.

 

I moved through the corpses lying on the floor and entered the new room. It is a round chamber with open spaces on the roof that lets snow and air go inside. It has spiral stairs in the middle leading down to a new place, and there is no sign of a path leading outside from here. I suppose I will go back from here.

 

Around the spiral stairs, some currency on the floor. It isn't much, maybe I can fill my pockets with the money on the floor, but it isn't what I am after anyways. I see a chest. It would be stupid to leave it alone. I moved closer to the chest and opened it.

 

There are two metal gauntlets with decorative engravings wrapped inside a red fabric that looks expensive. I grabbed one and put my hand inside. It changed its size according to my hands, and fit perfectly into it, then I pulled the belt like a lock on to make sure it wouldn't fall, then repeated the process for my other hand.

 

I stretched my fingers and moved them and my hand around. "Much more comfortable than I excepted." Looking closer to the gauntlets, arent the engravings look like a spider? I suppose it fits with the theme.

 

A screen appeared in front of me. I am not even surprised by this point.

 

[New equipment gained! Spider gauntlets.

 

Ability: Increases user's grip strength by ten times.]

 

Increased grip strength by ten times, now, now. I suppose I can think about entering dungeons every week if all the rewards are this good, but I want to try this first.

 

I grabbed the currencies on the floor, put them in my bag, then moved back to the room I fought against the spider. To test my newly gained strength, I grabbed a large bone shard dropped from the spider's head and pressed it with my palm. It shatters into hundred pieces with little to no power.

 

So, this is how I will grow stronger and defeat the powerful monsters spread across this forest. I wonder what I will get next.