“Ahhhhhhh!”

The sudden scream jarred me from my drooling stupor. The gigantic arachnid was across the room from what I could see of the fluorescent lights on its back. The orc girl screamed again and I blinked away the remnants of psychosis. I was exhausted and standing in something wet, sticky, and lumpy.  

Where… ? What…? I blinked again, gathering my scattered thoughts. Spider. Orc girl. Dragons. Another scream set me to work. I tore through the webbing and transformed my bracelet into a sword to cut the rest free. With my senses back I could feel the spiders surging towards me and I furiously destroyed their webs restraining me. I was standing in a sludgy mound of eggs and I didn’t have to wonder where they came from.  

Slash! Stab! Dodge!

I cut through the spiders coming at me in the darkness as I launched toward the light of the queen. The Orc girl was strung up in a web ten meters off the ground and I could just see her in the neon glow of the Aflashnid Queen, who was level 44. The Orc girl was level 17.

I summoned a Water Clone to deal with the small spiders and launched toward the glow of the big one. I slashed, but the spider queen reacted first. She’s fast! The queen moved away from my slash and struck me with one of her front legs for a fifth of my health. I regenerated with Rain Armor and moved in for another strike.

Flash!

I turned away just in time, jetting forward to continue the strike after the light went out. She dodged and hit me again, then lit up for another flash. There was a flare-up just before the actual flash if you watched closely around the eyes. I looked away and came in for another slash, with the same result. 

We went at it for another minute. The same combination of strike, dodge, strike, and flash. But I had an idea. I activated Harden and moved in to attack as usual. She dodged easily, striking me again before preparing another flash. I let myself get hit harder this time and reeled back, hiding my sword from view. I activated Shape Metal and my blade became a focused reflective metal shield that I used to reflect the next flash right back at her.

Thud!

The queen fell from her perch on the wall and to the floor, skittering wildly as she struggled to get back to her feet. Now was my opportunity! Mana Beam!

The beam severed three legs and the queen was up again and shaking off the effects of her own attack. The Aflashnid Queen chittered at me. Hard to say for sure but I think she was cursing at me in spider. The orc girl was in a stupor from the attack so I hit her with a full-face Splash.

She awoke in a panic, pleading in a language I couldn’t understand. I shot a series of 1-handed, alternating beams at the queen and she backed off behind a large swatch of webbing. It gave me the opportunity to cut the girl down and throw her over my shoulder.

“It’s alright, I got you. Just hold on,” I said. 

I held her over my shoulder with my left, shield in my right hand. She wasn’t that heavy, but I wasn’t used to flying with a passenger. All the spiders were swarming the walls and floor on every side. It was all I could do to stay in the center airspace out of melee range while keeping an eye on the queen.

Flash! 

I reflected the flash again, but the queen closed her eyes to avoid it. She was adapting to me adapting to her flash. I shot another beam, missing and cutting through a dozen or two smaller spiders. It barely put a dent in their numbers.

Flash!

I didn’t reflect it this time. I closed my eyes and turned away, using Shape Metal to create a round saw blade. Believing she would close her eyes to avoid a counter-flash, I hurled it straight at her last position. 

Thunk!

The couple meter-wide sawblade cleaved the Aflashnid Queen’s head clean in two and embedded her into the floor of the hollow. Fluorescent green blood lit the floor of the room revealing a host of discarded skeletons, equipment, and heaps of refuse.

Might be something useful here, I thought. I was thinking of my days back clearing boss caves and looting dungeons. Or it could be a bunch of junk. There was no need to risk staying any longer. The smaller spiders were as agitated as ever and started leaping from the ceiling hollow at me.

I used Virulent Twister with Poison Doubling to blast the spiders away from the exit while flying as fast as I could away from the army of clicking fangs and raining spiders.

Swipe!

I narrowly dodged the swipe of the Silverfang camped out above the exit of the spider hollow. It gave chase for two or three branches but was no match for my flying speed.

I dropped down into a clear spot near a stream after a minute of flying, scattering a group of Flamouse into the underbrush. If it was safe enough for them, it was safe enough for me.

The orc girl began to immediately throw up to the side of the river. My clothes had been shredded to pieces and with fang holes all over what was left. The lower part of my dress was soaked with disgusting fluid. The Orc girl was wearing what I would expect somebody in an overgrown jungle to wear: grass fiber woven together to create a cropped top to just cover her chest and a long skirt. She was a little smaller than me and had light green skin. Her hair was black hair and her eyes were blue, but her right eye was a darker shade.

“Uh, me Valerie,” I pointed at myself like she was some sort of caveman or jungle child.  “Do you understand?”

The girl nodded. I think she even rolled her eyes.

“Finally! Well, I can’t understand anything you’ve said, so that’s not helpful, but damn. Yeah. Ok, so there are other non-dragon-controlled people out there?”

The girl nodded again.

“Great. Can you take me to them?”

She didn’t react. 

I didn’t have time to ask any more questions. There was movement around us. Something came within range of my Vapor Sense and I could see the leaves moving subtly now that I was aware. Twelve of them. No, wait. More entered the area. Seventeen now.

“We should go, we’re being surrounded,” I said, reaching out to grab her hand.

She didn’t take it but rather pulled it defensively away from me.  

I was confused for a moment until the first of the Orcs filed out of the foliage. They had their spears drawn and rushed straight toward me.  I instinctively rolled backward from the jutting metal points and surveyed them. They weren’t even level twenty, equipped with leather armor adorned with skull pauldrons. 

More Orcs filed out, spears pointed at me from a couple of meters away. They all wore the same equipment, ranging in height around 2 meters wearing similar armor. Was this an armed patrol of some kind? The uniformity meant they had some amount of training and craftsmen to supply them with quality gear. I didn’t want to fight them.

“Hey,  I don’t want to fight you,” I stepped forward, holding my hands out in a friendly gesture.

“HRAHH!” A larger Orc stepped out of the brush, wielding a large battle ax rather than a spear. His bellow was so loud it drowned out my words.

“Hey-”

“HRAHHH!” The Orc roared again, cutting me off and drowning me out again. He was stronger than the others. Level fifty.

The Orcs split a path for this bigger, more ferocious-looking one to approach me. Unlike the others, he wore a bone breastplate made of one solid piece and had two shoulder pauldrons. The right size was the large skull of a bird, while the right side was a humanoid skull. Various scars adorned his skin and his hair fell in a long braid down his back. I also think his nose was slightly crooked.

“HISTAAAH!” The Orc girl yelled. She pushed through the circle and past me to confront the much larger Orc.

They took turns speaking and gesturing, none of which I understood. He shouted again and then glared at me.

“Wha–”

“HRAAAAAH” He screamed at me again. 

I clenched my fists and glared at him. He smirked and it took all of my patience not to remove his head from his shoulders. I killed a Dragon. I can take some gym bro Orc. 

The Orc smirked at me and turned to the circle of spears. He spoke and they spread out to create a larger circle around the two of us. Three more came to escort the smaller one away against her protest.

“HEHRA!” The orc stomped on the ground and a semi-spherical barrier formed around the two of us like a bubble stuck to the ground. A wall separated us now from the rest of the Orcs.

“You wanna fight?” I asked.

He cracked his neck, raised his ax, and roared. Then he charged me.

I ducked the first swing, rolled under the second, and took a solid punch straight to the jaw. Wow! It was more of a surprise than it was painful, and I shook it off before side-stepping another ax swing.

Craaaaack!

The ground splintered beneath me. He stomped on the ground, sending a shockwave out that knocked all the Orcs outside of the circle to the ground. I didn’t move. Stable Core prevented me from being moved by the attack.

My opponent looked to the left at the Orc that had fallen, then slowly to the right, and finally to me. His eyes narrowed and he growled at me. He roared again.

“I don’t want to hurt you! I wan–”

“HRAAAH HAH HAH HAH!” He interrupted me again, this time with a hearty forced laugh. Tightening the grip on his ax, he charged me again.

Shadow Tether! The shadow wrapped around his ax as he lifted it to strike. I pulled it forward and simultaneously launched myself forward to meet him. Both he and the ax were thrown off balance and I punched him in the breastplate with enough force to shatter it and send him careening across the ground like a rock skipping across a lake. 

I pulled the ax to me with another Shadow Tether and spun it around a little to show off. Sadly my axe-spinning was terrible. He looked mad when he got to his feet and glared at me. Red-faced, forehead vein throbbing rage. I threw the ax so that it landed a few feet from him.

“Come on, then. Fight.” 

There was a sudden pressure in the air emanating from the Orc. He grew a little in size and his muscles became more defined. His hair changed, unraveling from the brain and turning a crimson red as it defied gravity and spiked upward in all directions, and his eyes burned with a magical red intensity. The most absurd thing was the two additional arms that literally exploded out of his torso.

I activated Harden and he slammed the ground with his ax, using all four arms to swing it down for maximum impact. The ground split under me a meter and he looked at me expectantly, like something else was supposed to happen. I didn’t wait. I charged him.

I did a hand sign and summoned a Water Clone behind me that moved in sync with me to hide her from view. The Orc made a quick horizontal swing at me and I grabbed the blade with both hands. It bit into my hands and dropped my health bar just a tick. The Orc was wide-eyed, and I don’t think it was just because the clone he hadn’t seen punched him square in the jaw just as he’d hit me earlier.

He pushed the ax towards me and found it wouldn’t budge any closer for him. He bore all his weight down upon me and it did not budge a fraction of an inch. My Body stat is definitely higher than his, I thought. I didn’t need nearly the force I’d thought to hold him back. He quickly found that he couldn’t pull the ax away from me, either. 

“If you want it so bad, take it,” I challenged.

The Orc snarled and yanked harder, eventually just letting go and backhanding my water clone out of existence. 

“Giving up already? You can have it back!” I hurled the ax with both hands straight toward him, fully intending to end this duel. 

I missed?

The barrier shattered when the ax touched it. Past that it struck a massive, smooth river stone that It cleaved straight in half. 

A golden flash had saved the surprised Orc and he was now sitting in his regular form on the river bank.  A towering golden female was kneeling over him. A semi-familiar form I’d seen before. Angeknight, level 69. A female. I recognized the swords before I’d even seen the name. 

“What were you thinking?” The Angeknight scolded the Orc, who was half her size. He was shouting and pointing, none of which I understood. A golden mist emanated from the Angeknight and the angry Orc almost immediately passed out. 

“Why can I understand you and not them?” I asked when she turned to face me.

The Angeknight was a giantess to me, nearly triple my height. “You’re an odd one. A strong one,” she tilted her head and sniffed the air toward me.

“What are you doing? Do I smell bad?” I sniffed myself. Yep. Definitely didn’t smell great. Ah, the lack of modernity and soap. 

“Yes, but it’s not that. There’s something familiar about you. You have a curse mark?”

“Curse mark?”

“Oh, they call it an Owner’s Mark.”

“I have one, but I’ve never seen it or know anything about it. So anyway, about why I can understand you? “

“I have a trait that allows me to understand all languages, and any who understands a language can understand me. Now I get to ask you a question. We’ll take turns. Where did you come from?”

“Earth. Where did you come from?”

“Valterra. How did you get to Dracadia? This world.”

“I died and was offered a chance at reincarnating into this world, but I had different expectations of what it would be. Will you help me kill the Dragons?”

“No. Is that all you came here for?”

“No? NO! What the actual fuck? You’re OK with the Dragons enslaving races and having them fight to the death in glorified battle arenas?”

Silence. The Orcs muttered to themselves in hushed whispers, grouping up behind the Angeknight as the silence dragged on. I shook my head.

“I can’t believe you don’t care-”

“You think we haven’t tried? That I haven’t tried?” Angeknight cut me off. “This is the solution. A place the Dragons can’t enter for risk of death. We monitor the Silverfang populations and keep them safe, and in turn they keep everyone safe from the Dragons. Now that the Giga Mecharex is old and out of commission, we have nothing to fear from the Dragons.”

I immediately had flashbacks to my time in Tyrannus’s office. “Oh, I see,” I nodded. I thought of the Giga Mecharex egg. 

Angeknight scrutinized me as I did my best to hide my sudden realization. I was never a good bluffer. “I have a proposition for you.”

“I’m listening,” I said, now scrutinizing her facial expressions. Nothing out of the ordinary.

“You tell me everything you’ve experienced since you’ve been here and I’ll fix your Owner’s Mark and unlock your suppressed powers.”

“Suppressed? How can you fix it? You can really do that?”

“Yes. Right now it’s essentially off since you attacked a Dragon,” the Angeknight explained. Another wave of hushed whispers circulated amongst the Orcs. “The version you have has more safeguards than the last one, meant to block certain elements and skills like Light and Void.”

“What does that mean?”

“You aren’t even a natural water type,” she continued, moving closer to me.

“I don’t know what that means,” I said, confused now. 

“You got dealt a generic element with the most basic water move ever thought possible. Then, you got all support skills for it. You should have more natural skills and traits related to your main element than any other, but you don’t. The Dragons are afraid of monsters being too powerful, so they put these limiters on every monster they encounter. The mark doesn’t give you powers. It just translates your magical signature into something you can manipulate and read.
“OK, you're telling me that in exchange for information, you'll make me stronger and that’s it?”

“You’ll also be able to speak Common Core, a language built into the old curse mark that they took away so that monsters could no longer communicate with each other.”

“You know what? Fine. If I have to fight the dragons alone I might as well be as strong as I can. When do you want this story time?”

“I have a mind-linking skill that allows you to show me any memories of your choice,” she said.

“That’s weird, but OK. Here?” I looked around. It was a little dirty and out in the open.

The Angeknight shook her head no, “We’ll go back to the village and do it in my office. You can fly, so it won't take much time. 

“What about the girl?” I looked over at the Orcs trying to wake their companion unsuccessfully. 

“She’ll be fine,” she said, “they wouldn’t let us take her even if we asked.”

“Oh, OK. But she’s safe?”

Angeknight nodded, and we were off, soaring and weaving through the branches and away from the river, into the depths of the forest.