George Knows Best [Mud Wizard LitRPG]

The night is a thing without edges. It is the mystery of the deep ocean, the glory of the stars, the silence of truth. The mud magician stalks through the night. He is the beast that prowls the darkness. The shadow on the edge of a fairytale that makes it seem real.

Rain. The rain is beating down. Always the rain, always to wander in the rain. The mud-churning rain. The mud-factory. The fuel of the mud magician. Rain and blood. He walks through them both untouched, unmoved.

An invisible eye wandering across the plain. A great eye of mud and at its pupil stands the mud magician, his mud sense spiraling out, searching for the enemies of his city, for the objects of his unquenchable vengeance. The eye blinks. He has found them. A cluster of bandits.

Bob treaded through the darkness. His form shrouded by the rain, his footsteps masked. He drew closer. Close enough to see them, to shape them out. A company of four men. An advanced patrol? Sentries? A roaming party? It didn't matter. They carried his sign. A black armband of crowned axe heads. That was all Bob needed to see.

"Mud-dart," he whispered into the silence of the night rain. A whoosh, a thud, a groan and one man toppled off the stone where he'd been sitting. Life and death. And nothing stood between them. They were two ways of seeing the same thing.

The other three sprang into action. Alert, fearful, desperate. They hunted for their assailant. They could hunt on. They could hunt all night and never find him. This was his stage. They had entered the mud labyrinth. The Dark Kingdom of the Mud Magician. And there was no escaping.

"Mud-dart," he whispered into the silence of the night rain. A whoosh, a thud, a gurgled scream and one man tripped where he'd been running, tripped and did not stand up. Life and death. Sometimes, very rarely, when the moment strikes just right, you can see them together, in the same person, alive and dead, in the same instance.

The last two panicked. Nothing is as terrifying as uncertainty. No face as frightening as the face you cannot see. No country so awful as the undiscovered country. One of them started to swing his sword wildly, shredding through the grasses, attacking imagined shapes, challenging the darkness itself.

And the darkness whispered back, "mud-dart." And there was night-blood spilling out onto the ground and a sword fallen to the grasses and a man crumbled there, staring up into the rain. Could he see it? Life and death together.

The last one threw his hands up and fell to his knees. He shouted out, "I surrender, I surrender."

Were these his enemies? Why had he been so afraid? Why had he been so tolerant? So cowardly? He was the mud magician. No one could touch him.

Bob walked forward. A shape emerging from beyond the darkness.

"I surrender, I surrender. Spare me."

Bob didn't believe him. Vengeance is a soul without pity.

"Where is your main camp? Where is the bandit king?"

"The heart of the northern forests. I can guide you there."

"Swear it to me. Swear it by the name of the Mud Magician. On penalty of death."

"I swear."

The man dropped where he stood. Struck down by the system. The hammer of justice.

Bob walked over to another. The swordsman. He was heaving on the ground. Lesser Excaliborn stabbed into his upper thigh. The dagger's poison was slowly eating away at him.

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"You. Tell me where the camp is. Swear it."

"The swamps by the river. Twenty minutes at a jog. I swear it. But there are traps. Heaps of them. I swear. You'll need a guide. You'll die without one."

"We will see, won't we?"

Bob reached down and pulled out the dagger. It was pristine, a pearly white that glimmered even in the night rain. It had drunk down all that blood and remained untouched. Bob weighed it in his hand. The thought had never occurred to him before, but maybe this dagger was an evil thing. Maybe all weapons are evil things. Can an object escape its purpose? Bob tucked it into his sheath and started to walk away.

"I told you everything you wanted. Save me!"

"Crawl up to my city and see if they'll take pity on you. I have no pity in my heart today. It pains me even to leave you alive."

Bob limped away. His leg was hurting bad. He slapped on another health patch, a low numbness seeping into the wound. It would take him thirty minutes at least, but Bob snarled to himself as he walked.

The bandit king had made a terrible mistake. The swamps? Yes, of course, the swamps were ideal for a small guerrilla force. Just try sending an army in there. The bandits would melt away and harry you every step. You'd bleed men and the next day the bandits would have regrouped and reformed. And you'd have to do it all over again.

But didn't the bandit king understand? Didn't the bandit king know his enemy? Had he no fear for the mud magician? Why it was almost a challenge, almost an invitation. A dare, if you will. Because swamps are nothing more or less than mud. Oh, the night was plenty long yet. This night was long as years. There would be no sleep for the mud magician tonight. No sleep for the bandit king. No sleep for death.

Traps, traps, traps. The swamp approach was a maze of them. Many and various. Magical and mundane. Trip wires, poison darts, pitfalls, ambush monsters. There were pools of electrified water. Ponds of rapuenflieger acid. Exploding mushrooms. Mirror puddles that looked like firm ground until you stepped into them. Pattern magic that made you lose your bearings. A rolling, mystical fog that seemed to carry a fear spell.

An army would have charged into that trap corridor and been slaughtered. The captive bandit had not spoken wrong. And yet, what did it all matter to the mud magician? He that can travel under the ground. He that could unfailingly determine what was mud and what was not. What did it matter when you travelled surrounded by your own mastered element?

Bob had arrived. He was at the camp proper. He could feel tents and the warmth of sleeping bodies above him. There were footpaths and sentries and a hundred men. Bob would bring an end to it. It would end today. By these hands.

He moved slowly, quietly. He would slither under a tent, lean up and slice his way inside. They were sleeping peacefully. In the heart of their camp. Surrounded by allies and friends, deep in the swamp, guarded by traps and sentries and one strong man. But it wouldn't protect them. It hadn't protected little George after all.

A disembodied hand would rise out of the ground, clutching a white dagger with a mud-grip. Maybe the sleeper would stir, mumble out a few sleepy words, that white glow reaching the subconscious even through closed eyes. And then a muddy gag would stifle over their mouth and nose. They would gasp silently and the dagger would glide in... It was over in a moment. Bob didn't even have to see their faces.

One by one. The angel of death descended upon the city in the swamp. The angel of death knocked silently on every door. The angel of death swept inside and granted every man the slumber of the lost.

Bob was visiting every tent. He spared no house. He honored no lamb's blood. He snaked through the camp, from tent to tent to tent. He felt it now. The grand pavilion at the centre of camp. The court of the bandit king. He edged his way nearer. And the quality of furnishings improved, better gear, higher levels. He was cutting his way through the bandit king's closest companions, his D-Rank elites. They died just the same. D-Rank was no protection against an Excaliborn to the brain.

How many tents had he visited? Ten, twenty, thirty, he'd lost count long ago. Nobody would wake up tomorrow. He'd leveled up once, twice, four times. He was level eighteen. The system poured the upgrades into his vitality and he felt his leg pain grow easier. He would devour them all. He would swallow down their army.

And then, suddenly, a voice.

"Boss, Boss! He's got the drop on you!"

"What?"

"That Bobman. He's level seventeen. Wait, level eighteen."

"What!" The bandit king was out of his tent, shirtless, muscular as a bear, clutching his war axe.

"Check the board."

"How is he racking up so much experience so quickly?"

"Monsters?"

The bandit king deliberated. But you don't become the leader of elite guerrilla force without a healthy dose of suspicion. He wasn't taking any chances.

"Wake everybody up. Up! Up!"

The sentry started shouting instructions. It didn't take them long to discover the bodies.

"Dead!"

"Over here too. All dead!"

"They're still warm, Boss."

"HE'S HERE!"