The Knight of Azteca by Nick Venom (books for 9th graders txt) 📖

Episode One "The Knight"

A knight in shining heavy iron armor wielding an iron broadsword marched through an open field to meet the small town of Marksberry. He wandered into the town and ventured through it, coming across the adventures’ guild nicknamed the ‘Underwood Guild’. The knight stomped his way into the guild and walked over to the receptionists’ desk where two receptionists waited for him. Before talking to the receptionists, he turned his face to stare at the adventurers sitting on wooden circular tables. Some adventurers cheered as they raised beer glasses into the air, drinking to their heart’s content while other adventurers sat at tables and enjoyed their food. A couple of adventurers stood at the quest board. The knight then turned around and faced the receptionists, demanding them to talk about their system. One of the receptionists gave him a fake smile as she began talking about the guild’s systems. The receptionist, named Lindsay, told the knight about the ranking system, everybody starting at rank F and making their way up to rank S. To advance up the ranks, the adventurer must meet each rank’s requirements, such as completing a certain amount of quests or completing a supervised advancement test. The knight will begin at rank F and are only allowed to take rank F and rank E quests. This allows him to venture to rank F and E dungeons in the surrounding area. 

Lindsay taught him about the three rules of adventuring---don’t steal prey from other adventures, killing other adventures will lead to imprisonment, and nobody is allowed to fight or disrupt others within towns. She then asked for personal information about himself, which he gave easily. “5’10, male, blue eyes, black hair, tan skin, human, and… ” She rattled off. “... what is your name?” The knight didn’t respond, instead, holding up a single finger. “One?” She asked, inking his guild card with his information before handing it over to him. The knight nodded his head, turning away from the receptionist. “Don’t forget to not bite more than you can chew!” Lindsay shouted. The knight nodded his head slightly before walking out of the guild. Lindsay tilted her head as she watched the knight. “I wonder why he has his armor on?”

Lindsay’s coworker, Betty, shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe he’s hiding something under it. Should I report it to the lord?” She asked.

Lindsay nodded. “Tell the lord that we have a suspicious individual here.” She then grabbed a piece of paper from under her desk and wrote down the knight’s description before handing it to Betty who rushed out of the guild and towards the lord’s mansion.

The knight headed to the closest and easiest rank F dungeon, nicknamed the ‘Rookie Dungeon’, venturing into it. The Rookie Dungeon held ten floors of easy monsters for beginners. The first floor held Horned Rabbits, rabbit creatures with a sharp horn that can pierce an amateur's gear. The knight gained ground within the first floor, closing onto the middle of the dungeon where a small horde of Horned Rabbits laid in wait. Once he made it to the middle, he was attacked by the small horde of rabbits. The lightweight and quick rabbits made a fool of the knight’s heavy armor and weapon. The knight swung his broadsword, catching the slower rabbits and slicing them into pieces, but missed the quicker ones. The quicker ones escaped the broadsword’s slower swing and allowed them to attack the knight’s heavyweight armor. The Horned Rabbits’ attack dealt no damage to the knight, instead, irritating him. He swung his broadsword, but the attack was too slow for the quicker rabbits, forcing the knight to retreat a few feet to gather his thoughts. Unfortunately, the rabbits didn’t allow the knight to fallback, denting his armor and making a bigger fool of him. The knight swung his broadsword again and again, but couldn’t catch up to the Horned Rabbits’ quick speed. The Horned Rabbits were too swift and avoided any of the knight’s slow attacks. Frustrated, the knight decided to fall back to the outside of the dungeon, leaving with his head laid low.

“I need to be faster,” the knight muttered as he left the area and returned to town, renting a room in an inn known as the ‘Golden Hope Inn’.

  

TBC…

Episode Two "Ae..."

The knight returned to the dungeon the next day with a plan. After returning from the dungeon the day previous, the knight decided to shed parts of his armor and ditch his broadsword for a lighter weapon, a normal lightweight iron sword. He ventured into the dungeon, coming across the Horned Rabbits for the second time. The Horned Rabbits let out a piercing sound that resembled giggling, a type of mocking that irritated the already frustrated knight. The knight swung his sword, managing to strike the overconfident rabbits and slaughtering a few. The Horned Rabbits changed their attitudes quickly as they picked up their pace, pushing them to their limit while being chased by the knight. The rabbits underestimated the knight. When he shed his armor and heavy weapon, his speed increased; which was enough to take down the quicker rabbits. 

The knight quickly slaughtered the rabbits and moved on towards the stairs that led to the second floor. Once on the second floor, the knight met with another lightweight monster known as the ‘Scout Goblins’, disposable goblins that Goblin Kings or Goblin Lords use for recon and reporting information to the Goblin Army. These Scout Goblins aren’t connected to the Goblin Army as they spent their entire short lifespan within the dungeon’s grasp without any hope of leaving due to a magical barrier that the dungeon constructed to hold the monsters inside. The Goblin Army, on the other hand, are not connected to dungeons and roam freely and pillage villages to survive. The army is a threat to kingdoms as they have over ten thousand goblins with varying ranks and strengths. 

The knight didn’t have the same lack of speed as the previous day, allowing him to catch up with the Scout Goblins and slaughter them one by one. As he slaughtered the entirety of the goblins, he missed a mutated one that hid in the shadows, watching him. Another low ranker goblin with a higher rank than a Scout Goblin was the flawed ‘Archer Goblins’. These goblins wielded bows and had a fifty percent accuracy rate, deeming them a minor threat. The knight slaughtered the goblins and made his way to the third floor when the Archer Goblin used its only opportunity to strike the knight with a single arrow, laced with makeshift poison from indigenous dungeon plants known as ‘Kai Flowers’. The arrow dinked the knight’s helmet, dealing no damage, but, instead, forcing him to turn around and charge at the archer. The Archer Goblin attempted to escape by moving through the shadows but failed as the knight received training on how to deal with shadow arts. The knight pointed the sword at the archer before raising it, horizontally, and launching it towards the archer. The sword pierced the archer’s head, decapitating it and letting its corpse fall into the dungeon’s lighted parts. The knight walked up to the headless corpse and retrieved his sword before digging through the archer’s corpse to find a small crystal, the size of a quarter. He inspected the crystal before clenching it within his palm. He then dropped it into a small almost nonexistent pocket of his armor. He turned towards the third floor’s stairs, heading up to meet his next foe, skeletons.

 

“You need to train your eyesight! If you don’t, then being assassinated by a dark arts user will be child's play.” A woman in her early twenties with dirty blonde hair that she put into a ponytail in a slim suit of armor told a figure. The figure nodded, not speaking. “One day I will have to leave you. Until that day, it will be my job to train you until you are strong enough to defeat the Demon King.” She joked before turning towards her weapon of choice, a spear made out of a golden steel-like material. The spear had a sharp and pointed tip made out of an unidentifiable material. The material resembled silver, but had a black complexion with spots of red scattered over it. The body of the spear extended to five feet, seemingly expanding to the user’s stature. “You are still young, so we have enough time to drill advanced information into your brain.” She then looked up at the sky. “I can only hope that your parents smile at us from the heavens, applauding your future path.” She whispered as a single tear dropped off her cheek onto the ground. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” barked the figure.

“Then let’s get started, Ae…” The voice trailed off before she could finish her sentence, cutting off the name of the figure. The knight, who in reality was stopped at the top of the stairs, shook the memory out of his head. He then stepped onto the third floor, watching every angle of the floor.

“I’ll make you proud, Gwen.” The knight muttered before venturing farther into the third floor.

 

TBC…

Episode Three "Corpse"

A couple of days passed before the knight decided to venture to a nearby rank E dungeon. The knight stood in front of the entrance to the dungeon, hesitating to enter it. A guard in iron armor waited outside, the helmet blocking off any conversations. The knight muttered to himself, speaking a prayer, before entering the dungeon, venturing deep into the first floor. He encountered a skeleton on the first floor, prompting him to slash the monster into pieces. The skeletons weren’t quick enough to outrun the knight, allowing him to plow through the first floor with relative ease. 

The knight went through the dungeon, reaching the second floor and being introduced to its monster, ‘Skeleton Knights’. Skeleton Knights are skeletons that swore to a ‘Knight’s Oath---similar to the one that humans take---given by Skeleton Lords. These Skeleton Knights wield a normal iron sword that they were prolific in using. They swarmed the knight once he entered the second floor, prompting him to use a spin attack to shake them off. The knight backed away from the small horde of Skeleton Knights and pointed his sword at them. They were known for the intelligence