The Gene of the Ancients (Rogue Merchant Book #2): LitRPG Series Read online

  The Gene of the Ancients

  by Roman Prokofiev

  Rogue Merchant

  Book #2

  Magic Dome Books

  Rogue Merchant

  Book #2: The Gene of the Ancients

  Copyright © Roman Prokofiev 2020

  Cover Art © Vladimir Manyukhin 2020

  English translation copyright © Sofia Shcherbakova 2020

  Editor: Irene Woodhead

  Published by Magic Dome Books, 2020

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN: 978-80-7619-139-6

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the shop and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.

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  Table of Contents:

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Interlude. The Goddess

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  About Roman Prokofiev

  Prologue

  GORTH HAGRA AGATOSH sharply sucked in the air through his nose. Here, the smell was quite different: fresh leaves, pine, and damp forest mist. Behind the Portal, in the Serpent Mountains, the air was already permeated with bitter smoke.

  Soon, that stench would find its way here. Four huge, blue-skinned orcs raised their chief on their shields. Agatosh bellowed an order, and the gruff sounds of horns answered him in the distance. War drums thundered. The warriors of the Sixteenth Horde were marching by, coming right out of the rainbow portal. Heavy orcish infantry recruited on the Sapphire Isles was the first, their plate armor clanging. Then came the gunners and the archers, carrying their crossbows and ballistae. Threehorns, roaring under the strain, pulled huge siege towers.

  The Fifth Horde, the so-called Black Devils, had already deployed their battle formations on this side. Draxes soared in the air, lining up in tiny triangles, while wolf riders scattered in every direction, scouting the area.

  A birdie landed nearby. It was a black dracondor. The crossbowmen around Agatosh immediately took aim at its rider, but then lowered their weapons, grumbling. The rider was an ally, even if a player.

  Agatosh repeated the sign of the Lady, saluting the newcomer. He loved killing players, but this one was favored by the goddess herself.

  “We’ll hold the portal for three more hours,” said the player without turning his head. Agatosh barked in satisfaction. That would be enough time for the Sixteenth and the assisting troops to pass through.

  The player adjusted the snow-white hair falling on his face. One of his eyes was closed by a black leather eyepatch. Slowly and in a measured tone, he said, “Gorth Hagra, I hope that your soldiers will be enough to turn the tides. Have you already received the information about the enemy? Do you have the map of their outposts, the reports on their garrisons?”

  “Yes,” muttered Agatosh, disgruntled, as he stroked the silver skulls on his cuirass. Was Ananizarte’s pet taking him for a wet-head who’d rush into battle without studying the enemy first? Him, Agatosh, the veteran of the Fiery Battle, who had brought Lliorkh under Lady’s heel, the plunderer of Proteus’ elves on the eastern coast? This Eyre Nation wasn’t any different. Its warriors were pathetic, its leaders were weak, and few players supported it. He would crush Eyre like a rotten nut.

  But not straight away. The Goddess of War knew that only fools rushed in.

  Chapter 1

  AN UNEQUAL BATTLE was raging on a green hilltop adorned by a crown of grey, fang-like menhirs. The defenders, a group of players pressed inside a circle of stones, were clearly outnumbered by a swarm of attackers who were climbing from all sides. No matter their valor, the outcome seemed predetermined: the enemies rushed in, and their blades clashed together in a shower of sparks.

  The camera that was soaring above the scene darted down, hungry to show the details of the fight: the enemies grappling with each other, their faces twisted in a grimace of hate and vicious triumph, feathered arrows trembling in the shields, the glint of steel, and bloody tracks on the grass.

  The defenders, all three of them who were left, ended up standing back to back, surrounded on all sides. Nothing, it seemed, could save them from their opponent’s wrath, but suddenly, blue fire erupted in the hands of one of them, enveloping his sword in bright light. Soon, the flaming blade flashed in the thick of the fight, incinerating any who dared to stand in his way, turning them into piles of ash and smoke, and leaving only charred armor that dropped down on the blood-soaked ground. After a minute of furious carnage, the hill crest was empty, the survivors having fled down the slope in shame.

  The camera zoomed in again, closing in on the young sword wielder’s face, his expression firm, his lips tight, a bloody scar on his forehead.

  “I could do it, and so can you!” he said, raising his fiery blade in a salute.

  Lines appeared on the screen:

  HotCat has been playing Sphere of Worlds for 69 days. He found this sword on his fifth day. Could you?

  The huge logo of Sphere gradually filled the screen.

  SPHERE IS A WORLD OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES!

  HotCat: So? Have you seen it?

  AlexOrder: Not bad. Pretty inspiring. Looks really similar to our fight at the Tomb of the Necromancer.

  HotCat: Yep. That scandalous video that Snow filmed gained lots of views on V-Net. People were all over it. The admins decided to make it into a commercial. Fanservice, get it?

  AlexOrder: Cool, I guess. Is it an in-game video?

  HotCat: Not quite. The admins have a special feature called a Workshop. That’s how they did it.

  AlexOrder: I know. A built-in editor. It allows us to create custom quests.

  HotCat: They sent me there. Filming, double takes — all very stressful, just like real movies. They’re going to do ten videos like that, all with different characters and storylines. Mine is kind of a headliner.

  AlexOrder: I hate to ask, Cat, but did they pay you for that?

  HotCat: Pay me? Well... I suppose they did. But not the way you think.

  I chuckled as I reminisced. The team sent by Sphere’s administration that had so unexpectedly appeared at my home turned out to be pursuing something very different than Balabanov’s case.

  They had a huge paradigm shift at the marketing department that promoted Sphere. Some bigwig up in the corporate chain had given everyone a good wallopin
g, fired the previous head manager, and set the entire department on edge. And so, they had kicked up a fuss, creating a plan for a new Sphere of Worlds marketing campaign.

  The focus was on the opportunities Sphere gave to a player right from the get-go, implying that every newbie could find a magic sword and own everybody. Was that nonsense? Absolutely. In the real game, it was all but impossible. Still, the marketing experts harped on that it would work and thousands of new players would pour in. And I, with my imba sword, had caught their eye, becoming the first candidate for the role of the campaign’s protagonist.

  Why not, really? The contract they had offered me wasn’t exactly taxing; the only problem was that Sphere’s administration really wasn’t keen on paying me in real money. I could understand them, too: why spend actual currency when they had all the riches of the virtual world at their disposal?

  “Everything you want,” so enticingly promised by long-legged Lana, turned out to be very limited. Real money wasn’t a part of that.

  Still, I didn’t have any regrets. I had put up quite an act, forcing the marketing team to pull out their main trump card. For some reason, I was very important to them.

  They had given me an unlimited Diamond account. Yep, the coolest subscription option. Five thousand terro a month was a pretty tidy sum: only wealthy people, major paying players, could spend that much on the game each month. I remember a forum post by one of them: You’re laughing that I pay top buck for a game, and I’m laughing that you consider this top buck.

  Upon selecting this account type, there wasn’t even a description of the bonuses, only a brief message saying the administration would contact the buyer within five minutes of purchasing it. VIP service, individual customer service.

  Overall, I felt like I hadn’t gone wrong. Too bad, I hadn’t gotten enough time to experience all those perks: first, the marketing department had dragged me into that filming business, and then, it was time for real life. I had to deliver on my promise, and at the end of the May holidays, Alena and I went to visit her parents.

  * * *

  Location: the world of Dorsa, Condor, the castle of the Watchers.

  With each new screenshot, Komtur’s face clouded up. The malevolent pentagram of a Great Portal looked at him from the pictures, lines of dark warriors marching from the rainbow glow, carrying dark banners with a five-pointed white crown. A long-tusked, broad-shouldered orc with three silver skulls on his cuirass led the army that seemed to have everything: runners, wolf riders, drax riders, mountain archers...

  “Who sent the info?” the leader of the Watchers asked curtly.

  “Bara Norkins from Sworn Brothers. She was the only one who managed to get close, they killed everybody else, shot down the birdies. The area’s teeming with enemies.”

  “So, a Great Portal. I didn’t expect Tao to go to such lengths. How many of them are there?”

  “Hard to tell. Three skulls indicate a Gorth Hagra — a Horde commander — but there’s more than one horde. At least ten thousand NPCs,” said Olaf, the clan analyst.

  “And not just anyone, those are the veterans of the House of Darkness,” Balian grumbled, studying the images. “They would eat our allies from the faction for breakfast.”

  “Yes, that’s certainly much more than Eyre could handle,” Olaf said. “And the worst thing is, they aren’t even in a hurry. Someone smart is leading them. They’re doing everything by the book, a thorough job, no reckless raids. Do you want me to tell you what’s going to happen?”

  “Go on.”

  “They’ll build outposts and infrastructure: magic shields, watchtowers, then fortify their rear, preparing for a long war. After that, it will be time for recon, finding Eyre’s weak spots. One by one, they’ll destroy the Nation’s forts until they reach Dan-na-Eyre itself. And then...”

  Olaf demonstrated a nut being cracked, doing a pretty good job. Balian nodded somberly, agreeing with his estimates.

  “How much time do we have?” asked Komtur.

  “This will take a while. We have at least three or four months.”

  “I just don’t get it — why does Tao need it?” Damian mused. “We couldn’t have injured his pride that much, could we?”

  “It’s not personal. I think I’ve figured him out,” said Olaf the Prophet without a smile. “A lot is at stake. I think that as the reward for the continental quest, Ananizarte has promised him her blood.”

  “Impossible!”

  “What else could it be? Items? Artifacts? PROJECT HELL farms Helt Akor. They’ve already lost the Living Armor they spent a year to obtain, plus the expenses on a stationary Great Portal, hiring Pandas... By my estimates, Tao has already wasted more than two million on the war with Eyre.”

  Balian whistled.

  “A goddess’ blood? Do you mean the Demigod archetype?”

  “Exactly. This is the only thing that could justify those astronomical investments.”

  “How about a lecture for those not in the loop?” Damian asked. “What Demigod archetype?”

  “Okay. A digression,” Olaf started walking, his hands behind his back. “Divine blood grants a player a chance to obtain the legendary Demigod archetype. This is the highest reward a celestial can give to a mortal. By bestowing their blood, a deity becomes weaker, losing a divine rank — so as you can imagine, they don’t squander such things lightly.”

  “In the history of Sphere, only three such cases have been recorded. Sou Ming, a Korean player, was the first to complete a quest chain of supreme rank.”

  “The Firefox!”

  “Yes, that’s her. The Firefox was a pyromancer, a high-level fire mage. After obtaining divine power, she became simply unstoppable.”

  “The burning of Rinport...” Komtur gave a knowing nod.

  “That’s right. The Firefox had always been...umm, unstable, but that made her lose her marbles. She and her pack raised such mayhem that hundreds of players petitioned the GMs. In the end, she was banned — notably, not for using the Demigod abilities, but for basic account sharing and violating User Agreement.”

  “Ah, I remember that. A huge scandal,” Abel chimed in. “The Chinese rebelled.”

  “Yes, banning Sou Ming caused a mass cancellation of subscriptions by Chinese and Korean players. But back then, Sphere was on the rise, and that controversy attracted lots of new people.”

  “I know the second one, too. Trogg?” Komtur asked.

  “Yes. One of the top players of the Russian clan Hird. He got the blood from a dwarven deity — he played as a dwarf, too — and manifested as a Demigod during the war with the Cursed, not that long ago. There’s even a video... An entire clan couldn’t kill him — Trogg got a superpowered protection, kinda like invulnerability. Unfortunately, he’s grown tired of Sphere and currently isn’t playing.”

  “The third one is questionable. There are lots of rumors that Corvin, a leader of one of the American clans, is also a Demigod. His abilities or the god who bestowed his blood to him are unknown. Everything’s top secret, and he only revealed himself once, during the key battle of NAVY versus Pandorum. They lost that fight anyway, but both sides keep mum about the details. Kill rating can’t be fooled, however: the stats it showed were absolutely bonkers, suggesting that Corvin does have that archetype.”

  “So Tao wants to become the fourth,” Balian the Raccoon said thoughtfully. “We could barely defeat him already. If Ananizarte buffs him with her blood, he’ll crush us into smithereens.”

  “I see.” Komtur was humorless. “We cannot give him Eyre. Any ideas?”

  “I’ll think about it. For now, we could taunt them using Cat. Have our cake and eat it. Pandas are all over me, demanding the souls we promised!”

  “It’s a risky business,” Komtur grunted. “Farming souls destroyed Taerland, as you know.”

  “Yes. But the scale was different back then. Entire factions got cut down. We’ll simply bite off a tiny piece: a hundred souls, maybe two hundred.”

  Ola
f smiled, quiet but vicious.

  “Where’s Cat, by the way? It’s been a while since I saw him. The Pandas are getting restless.”

  “He’s stuck in real life for the holidays. Says he has some problems. He’ll be back soon.”

  * * *

  My wife’s family — her parents and a seventeen-year-old slacker of a brother — lived in the suburbs, in a green, private area. Alena was an army brat, and her parents had retired right after the end of the conflict in the Transbaikal region. As far as I remembered, it had happened fifteen years ago, when the army’s size was sharply cut down, as there was nobody left to fight. The generous retirement package allowed Alena’s parents to buy an American-style, two-story house with a garage and a garden, while a pension let them lead a comfortable life.