Alpha Zero (Alpha LitRPG Book 1) Arthur Stone (hardest books to read .txt) 📖

other such disreputable folk. Though these people grew mellower with each new generation after settling on the right bank of Redriver, their freedom-loving sentiment remained just as strong. As a result, virtually all attempts by aristocrats to gain a foothold in these territories had ended badly. Moreover, the emperor appeared to approve their presence. Perhaps he was content with having this border of the realm populated not by perpetually squabbling nobles, but by people that made up for their lack of blue blood by living as a close-knit community—and keeping similarly close control over the border.

Of course, their lives weren’t filled with many comforts. The soil was simply too poor—which I suspected was also the main reason why the nobles hadn’t bothered laying claim to the entire right bank of Redriver. The free folk had a hard enough time feeding themselves, supplementing farming life with all sorts of odd jobs.

Rycer, Krol and the rest had been hired by a small merchants’ guild. At least I assumed that they were small, if only because I had never heard of them before. They were called the Three Axes, and I definitely would not have forgotten the name, as it reminded me too much of my college life. Back then, my buddies and I would often drink a brandy called “777,” dubbed by one creative thinker from our crew by the same name.

The mercs had only uttered the full name once. Between the two of them, they simply referred to the guild as the Triad. The organization controlled a trading station on the left bank of Redriver. The lands were perilous, no doubt, but promised quite the reward for those capable of settling them.

And the merchants appeared to have settled here pretty well. The trading station had been in operation for years now, and must have been making money given that it kept being supplied. Were the operation unprofitable, it would have been shut down long ago. Such had been the fate of most ventures that sought to extract some kind of profit from the Wild Wood.

Mother’s subjects made infrequent sallies into the area as well, with the same purpose. And many of them were successful in terms of the haul. Yet, the loss of life was likewise heavy, leading to Camai admonishing Treya to forgo any such raids for the foreseeable future on that fateful day.

By my estimation, the wagon held roughly fifteen hundred pounds worth of cargo. The big-boned farm horse pulled it easily enough even along this shabby road—and there couldn’t be a better one this close to the Wild Wood. With twelve wagons in the caravan, the total was coming out to be around nine tons. Despite having lived under rather special circumstances, I’d seen enough to surmise that most of the cargo was foodstuffs. I would guess roughly two-thirds of the total. Plus wares, both glass and ceramic, tools, clothes, medicine and, of course, the cheapest spices—the cornerstone of the local diet. Not pepper or clove or anything banal like that, but something that helped transform plain food into a resource with which the natives of Rock could develop attributes that could be seen by looking within.

In developing its structures, the Order was forced to transform physical bodies. This process could be done with quality in mind—or without. The former made it possible to achieve maximum progress, but required regular consumption of a varied range of spices, which only aristocrats could afford. Everyone else had to make do with budget options, which was nevertheless enough to raise one’s attributes to considerable heights.

So, a total of six tons of food. Given that such caravans were scheduled to run several times a year, and the trading station should be meeting their needs at least partially by procuring their own resources, it had to be accommodating quite a bit of people. A couple of hundred at the very least, and possibly three hundred or more. And most of them able-bodied men, seeing as the hiring contracts lasted no less than one full year and necessitated plenty of hard, albeit fairly well-paid labor. All of that amounted to quite a serious operation—far more substantive than anything the Crow Clan had been up to at the twilight of their existence.

Then again, perhaps it was too early to be calling an end to the ancient clan. For all of my oddities and deficiencies, officially, I was still a member of the Crow Clan. And, if Treya was to be believed, the last such member. Which meant that, technically, the clan was not yet extinct.

Of course, shouting about it publicly would be about as smart as a rabbit screaming into a fox hole. The killers had come after us hardly because of a spontaneous impulse to extinguish the remnants of our bloodline. They had been deployed by one Lord Resai. Though the name told me nothing, his wish to root out the last of the Crow Clan had been made fully evident. So, for as long as I was still breathing, I would do well to fear another encounter with the band in black.

Both Pence and Resai were officially on my shit list. Would they care even if they knew? Hardly. I posed more danger to myself than I did to them. But were I to have the ill luck of facing either of them, the result would be tragically predictable. And I wanted to live. I hadn’t a clue as to how I would survive past the near-two-month mark allotted me by the boosted amulet, but I wasn’t throwing in the towel any time soon.

I was a fighter by nature. And I intended to fight until the end. But before I could fight, I needed to observe and to analyze. And then to conceive a battle plan.

Then I might just have a fighting chance.

A few pressing questions remained: why had I been picked up, where was I being taken, and