Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 2) - Chapter 60 - Bearded Menace (Patreon)

Howard gripped the haft of his double-bearded axe. The weight of it felt perfect in his hand. When he’d purchased it, he’d gone right ahead and gotten the Axe Mastery skill, using one of the two skill points he’d received from the loot box after the fifth floor.

Previously, he’d been training with a sword, but the sword had never felt right to him. Never felt natural. Not like he knew it must feel for Justin. Perhaps it was simply seeing that boy wield his own sword with such skill and ease compared to him, or maybe he was just built differently. He didn’t know.

In those weeks he’d spent cooped up in the tower library of Queen Alastea’s castle, he’d become enamoured with the legend of one of the Denizens he’d read about.

Sir Gambion. The stories called him the Walking Fortress. The legendary Denizens the stories spoke of were always those that ended up leaving the sector Queen Alastea resided within—no one truly powerful ever stuck around that place.

While stuck in that library, Howard kept stumbling upon more and more stories about the Walking Fortress. A tank so powerful that nothing could ever harm him. The man, of course, had wielded an axe.

That’s where Howard’s fascination with them had been born. At first it had felt a little childish. Like he was reading fairytales and wanting to live them out. At his age, he was far too old for such things. But when they’d finally returned to the Staging Room and he’d stepped up to the System Shop’s terminal, he just couldn’t help himself.

His axe, Bearded Menace—not a name Howard chose, though one he was growing fond of—cleaved through the neck of a leaping goblin, then another on the backswing as he wrenched the blade out of the first one’s neck.

Howard didn’t know how to feel about the fact that he enjoyed combat so much, or that the feeling of gaining Mastery Points never failed to thrill him. There were some cops that got off on confrontation. On using their badge to get away with beating the crap out of someone.

Howard had never been one of those. Violence was a last resort, one only used when every other option had been exhausted, or when there simply is no other option to begin with.

Yet he felt as though now, violence was always the first option. The world was a different place. The threats around him different. Therefore the methods needed to deal with them were different too.

I’m still a protector at heart, he thought, not sure who he was trying to convince. That’s why I ended up with the tank class. That’s why I have to do what I’m doing.

The face of his wife and children was burned into his mind. God, he worried about them every day. He hoped his wife was with them. He knew children under the age of sixteen were taken to Safe Zones. Though who knew if those Safe Zones were actually safe. Stephanie was fifteen now. She’d be sixteen soon enough.

He wanted to be there for her before she was integrated.

At first, he’d known the advice he would give her—don’t choose Champion. Whatever you do. He would have told her that for so many reasons. Howard and the other members of his party hadn’t talked about what they’d had to do to get where they were. Hadn’t talked about the innocent people they’d needed to kill just to get past the first test to “prove” they were worthy of coming to the Tower of Champions.

And what an awful test that is. One that forces as to kill another, someone who doesn’t deserve to die, simply to save our own skin.

But he’d thought long and hard about that test since. The System wanted conflict. He knew that. He’d read about that, in the library. There were many theories. One of the moral paths people could choose was the path of chaos. If the System was in any way good, it certainly wouldn’t push that path on people.

It wouldn’t push us to fight, either.

The test, however, wasn’t evil, not if one were thinking like the System must—assuming the System had thoughts, he still knew very little about it and how it worked. The System wanted to find people who did what was necessary to protect their world. Sometimes, the darkest of acts were what was required to keep the peace. It was a reality Howard hated to admit. But that was how many leaders throughout history had managed to stay in power, and staying in power meant stability for their country or kingdom, and stability meant safety.

Safety was what he wanted for his children. Safety was what he needed for them. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that he alone could keep them safe for all eternity. No, this new world would throw so many threats at them.

Maybe choosing Champion is what they’ll need to do to survive. And if that’s the case, then I need to prepare them for that.

The very idea was still abhorrent to him, even if the seed of it was slowly growing, sprouting to the surface of his mind.

How could he encourage, train, ask, his daughter to kill?

Because this is a new world.

The corpses of a hundred goblins surrounded Howard. He wasn’t even breathing heavily. “Clear!” he called out to the others. Xavier was outside, in the courtyard of the keep. The sixth floor, it turned out, was a reversal on the fifth floor. Instead of protecting a fortress—Queen Alastea’s castle—they were taking down a stronghold.

When they’d arrived, they’d found themselves at the head of an army of a hundred soldiers. The numbers felt so miniscule after seeing the ranks of the Endless Horde charge the queen’s castle every hour for so many weeks. A prince had approached them. More royalty.

The man had hailed them, called them Champions, and told them they’d been summoned to lead his army into battle.

“No,” Xavier had said, his hands folded behind his back. He hadn’t even bothered summoning his new weapon—Charon’s Scythe, a fierce-looking thing. Nothing could harm him in a place like this. He’d looked up at the keep in the distance. “You want us to take that keep?”

The prince had nodded, looking a little uncertain, not to mention a bit offended at being spoken to in such a way, but he had a wariness about him when he looked at Xavier, as though he sensed the strength the man had despite the fact that he was hiding his aura.

“We will take the stronghold alone.”

“Wait!” the prince had called out as Xavier marched toward the keep. “My father. He’s at the top of the keep.” The man had glanced up at the sun. “The Goblin Lord said he would be executed at sunset. They’re… performing some sort of ritual. I’m certain you are brave and powerful, but please don’t risk my father’s life by going alone. Arrogance will not be enough to save him.”

Xavier had paused then, staring at the man, the gears turning in his mind. “I will ensure your father’s safety.”

The prince hadn’t looked convinced, but he also hadn’t argued.

Xavier wasn’t a man one wanted to argue with.

It was still strange, seeing how much that man had changed. He was still so young. Early twenties. Perhaps that was part of it. It wasn’t exactly as though he were a blank slate, but his philosophy of life had not yet had a chance to become set in stone. And here he was, falling into being a progenitor. No strong ties to hold him back from becoming what he needed to be.

The sixth floor’s goblin keep—that’s what they were calling the stronghold they lay siege against—had at least twenty different floors. Howard had just cleared the fifteenth floor when he’d called the all-clear to the others.

Each of the floors had a window, offering a clear view of the sun as it slowly fell. This sixth floor of the Tower of Champions was quite different to the other floors they’d experienced. There was a time limit. Something told him that if the prince’s father died at sunset, and whatever ritual the goblins was performing were to happen, then they would fail the floor and be pushed back to the Staging Room—or perhaps they would be forced to fight something far more powerful than the goblins.

And if we save him, does that mean we’ve cleared this floor?

That’s what Xavier believed.

Clearing the floor, of course, wasn’t an option. Not yet. They were simply here to gain levels. Farm. Howard strode over to the window and stared down at the prince. At his soldiers. He bit his lip and looked over his shoulder at Xavier.

The man had an indecipherable look on his face, but Howard figured he could read it. There was something they all knew, but none of them were saying.

If they cleared every floor of the goblin keep but the last, where the king was being held captive by the goblins, then headed back down the keep and through the Staging Room door—another trapdoor, near the bottom of the keep—to refresh this floor, then the king would surely die.

It felt different now, farming a floor, when they knew the people on the floor were real. When he’d first learnt they were real, in his mind he’d cursed the System for throwing him into these conflicts. Howard may have been a cop, someone who helped keep order, but he hadn’t been a soldier. And here the System was, throwing them into conflicts that weren’t their own.

He’d watched Xavier kill countless enemies—many of them human—and wondered if what they were doing was right. Those soldiers were fighting because they had to, weren’t they? How could killing them be good? Simply because they were protecting Queen Alastea? Did saving a single life constitute taking so, so, so many?

And how could Xavier do it?

He’d come to the conclusion that the Endless Horde, and anyone who fought within it, were simply the enemy. He didn’t know if he would go so far as to call them evil, but they were certainly taking orders from someone who was. If they surrendered, the fight would have ended.

They hadn’t surrendered, and so the fight went on.

But this floor was different, wasn’t it? Xavier intended to help Howard, Siobhan, and Justin gain as many levels as he could get for them. Which meant farming this floor and the following floors countless times.

Which meant leaving the king to be sacrificed countless times, until Xavier deemed he was ready to clear the floor and no doubt get to the top of the leaderboard after doing so.

They’d done this before. They’d cleared several waves of the Endless Horde the first time they’d come to the fifth floor, then simply stepped back into the Staging Room. They’d abandoned the first Queen Alastea they’d met, from a different universe than the second one they’d met, and that woman had died. They hadn’t known about the multiverse then—that every floor of the Tower of Champions led to somewhere that was real. That every time they stepped onto a floor, they created yet another universe.

God, the multiverse is a confusing place.

Howard took the lead, bounding up the spiral stairs to the next floor of the goblin keep. Bearded Menace cleaved through one goblin after another. Each swing took a head, an arm, or sunk deep into one of the green bastard’s chests.

He felt no remorse for killing the goblins, even if they were self-aware humanoids.

They’re the enemy, about to sacrifice a king.

He embraced the thrill of the fight once more, relishing in his newfound power. With Xavier’s help, he’d bought the most powerful weapon he could for his current class and attributes. These goblins were no match for him, Siobhan, and Justin. They hadn’t needed Xavier’s help once, and with his ability to tank Howard had barely needed Siobhan’s healing abilities.

They took out floor after floor until Howard strode up the stairs toward the nineteenth floor. On his way, he skimmed through the notifications he’d received.

Axe Mastery has reached Rank 15!

Axe Mastery has reached Rank 16!

Bulwark has taken a step forward on the path!

Bulwark is now a Rank 20 spell.

…

Martyr’s Defence is now a Rank 18 spell.

…

Taunt is now a Rank 15 spell.

…

Backfire is now a Rank 15 spell.

One cannot walk backward on the path.

He couldn’t help but bask in all the ranks. At the same time, he knew it wasn’t enough. It hadn’t taken them very long to make it to penultimate floor of the goblin keep, maybe an hour, but he’d only gained two levels in that time.

We’re going to need to do this a lot more times.

He thought about the king at the top of the tower. The man that was a real, living, breathing human being. Thought about sacrifice, and duty, and doing what needed to be done to keep stability, and order, even if sometimes what was needed was something dark, like killing an innocent person just because the System told you it was what was needed to survive. To become a Champion.

To farm this floor, we’re going to have to do a dark deed. We’re going to have to abandon that king.

Howard taunted the goblins on the nineteenth floor. There were more than there had been on the floors before it—at least two hundred—but they could take them. And they could take them fast.

Most of the goblins streamed toward him. To keep the fight manageable, he attracted them toward the doorway with his Taunt spell. That way, only so many goblins could come at them at once, hindered by the narrow arch.

He delivered death with one axe swing after another.

Though the archway was narrow, Justin flew over his head. The Airborne Duellist delivered death from above with his Air Strike spell, then swooped down and attacked at their heads—the goblins rarely looked up. Never expected him to be there. When his spell neared the end of its use he flew back through the arch and stood behind Howard. If the goblins ever used their ranged spells on Justin, it was easy enough for Howard to use Martyr’s Defence and take the damage on himself, though Justin was also trying to rank up his Magical and Physical Resistance skills, so that wasn’t always required.

Justin’s wings no longer resembled those of a baby duck, either.

The team made quick work of the penultimate floor.

When the last goblin died, Howard was breathing heavy. He leant against the stone wall of the keep and looked out of the window. They’d been at this for over an hour, and it looked as though the sun still had another half hour before it would set.

Plenty of time to spare, and that was without using the most powerful member of our party, not to mention not using the prince and his hundred soldiers. The floor seemed easy enough, if he were honest, though that made him wonder what surprises lay in store on the twentieth floor.

Justin stepped up to the final set of stairs. The teenager bit his lip.

“It’s time to go,” Howard said, keeping any hint of emotion from his voice. He looked over at Xavier, expecting the man to say the same thing.

The man’s face was blank. His hood was down. He looked at the steps, then over at the window. “Not yet,” Xavier said. “Siobhan, can you summon the prince and his soldiers up here?” The woman had practised her summon spell a lot while they were on the fifth floor, stuck in that library.

Siobhan tilted her head to the side, looked as though she were about to say something, then nodded instead.

A bright light filled the room. The prince and his soldiers materialised in the middle of the keep’s nineteenth floor. The prince had a look of confusion on his face, but it only lasted a moment. Howard imagined the man was used to pretending he knew what was happening.

The man looked around, seeming rather impressed by what they’d done.

Xavier held up a hand before the man spoke. “This is where we leave you.”

“Leave us?” The prince stepped forward. “But my father, he’s still in danger!”

Xavier looked at the ceiling, peering at it as though he could see through the floor. Aura Sight. A purple mist flowed from him, seeping upward, past the prince and the soldiers all with wide eyes.Willpower Infusion.

“The enemies on the final floor are about to fight each other. All but one will die. That final enemy will throw its weapon away and await you and your men to deliver its death and save your father from being sacrificed.” Xavier lowered his gaze to the prince. “You must wait until my party and I have left. Watch us, from the window. Only then can you and your men move forward to the final floor and save your father.”

The prince blinked, understanding dawning in his gaze. For the first time since they’d been there Howard realised the prince might know something of the multiverse—might know the consequences of having summoned Champions, just as Queen Alastea had.

“Thank you, Champion.” The prince stepped up to Xavier. Took his hand. “Thank you.”

Howard looked over at Xavier. Out of all of them, he’d imagined the man would be the first to sacrifice that king up there. Imagined he wouldn’t have even considered an alternative, as they needed to farm these floors to get stronger. And that was more important, wasn’t it?

In Howard’s mind there had been two options—clear the floor completely, or leave the king to die.

Xavier had found a third.

There’s more to him than I thought.