Chapter 37: Test of Loyalty Part 2
At that moment he heard those words, the other leader stood frozen to the ground, it was as if pikes suddenly descended from heaven and pierced his legs, making him unable to move. But as the leader that he is, that state of his just lasted for a second, he immediately grabbed the spider using his hands, after which he shook it like mad and questioned in a shouting whisper.
"What Happened!?"
The severely wounded spider flailed about and the shrill voice immediately protested.
"Stop! if this spider died, I would not have any other means to contact you!"
The monkey shuddered at this statement, and he immediately stopped shaking the poor spider, in the long life of the spider queen, desperate situations such as this one are common in her vast amount of experience, and in all the tales the queen has narrated, never did she seek help to save herself no matter how dire her predicament might be.
But now...
"I... I need your help, my godchild... I was betrayed... GHAK!"
The spider queen said in between small coughing fits, after which the tribe leader heard loud coughs, after a while they subsided.
"By who?"
The primate already has a guess who, but still decided to ask.
"By her... by the hero prospect, it all started when..."
The spider queen then without holding anything back narrated how she and the wretched hero prospect have come up with a cooperation deal. It all started with the invasion of the wolves to the settlement of the said hero, that incident like any other was something well known to the Queen, and also like other events, she wants to profit from it no matter what. Thus she contacted the hero and alerted her beforehand, in return she will have the samples of the wolf king's blood, and alas the risk she took paid off, she got her desired blood and started to experiment on it to create a new type of combat spider of the fire attribute.
Surprisingly, the queen even received the help of the hero herself who exhibited knowledge that rivaled or even surpasses her own, the hero corrected the queen's mistakes and improved fields she thought had already reached their limit and after a while, the first male and female fire spiders was born and is just currently in the process of mating.
"I thought that I am really lucky at that time, and became more greedy, I soon desired to make arachnids that are humanoids just like me and targeted your father, it was even more convenient that the hero wants to rule his volcano too..."
After she learned that she and the hero have the same target, they immediately set out a plan, a subordinate of the hero who is good at disguise infiltrated the ranks of the monkeys and manipulated the two youngest of the tribe leader's children into rebelling against him to split the forces of the said race, the spider queen then will quickly disagree for any request of help from any side and will use the other as an excuse, this will cause the two sides to compete for more against each other to gain her side, and then a war for her will ensue. One must not look down on the charm of information, more so for the rebels and the tribe leader faction, after all, one wants to not cross paths with the prospect and the other want to teach her a lesson, thus both the power of intel. will be needed by both sides.
"The moment the war broke out, we will, of course, rip the benefits among ourselves, the monkey tribe leader will be mine while the population and the volcano will be hers, but when she learned about your final attempt on pursuing my assistance, perhaps because she is too cautious or because she planned it from the start, she attacked me, she commanded her unusually powerful goblin infantry to march towards the secret route I created for my escape, it took me all my battle spawns just to drive her and her army out of my lair, however, her goat cavalry is already on its way to end my life.
The spider queen wheezed for several seconds before finally speaking.
"Please... Help me... I am willing to break my oath of neutrality, just don't let me die!"
With a sorrow-filled tone, she once again stated her request, in the end, it is a greedy wish and one can even say that she has a thick face to even think of asking for help if she is the one who desired to kill their father for her gains, but this is her true nature, she is only thinking of herself and she using her and their father's carnal relationship as an excuse is what made them confused on what was going on.
Maybe because of this that the monkey leader never questioned the spider queen about anything else, he did not even think of her as a greedy fuck nor did he consider her lying nature.
He just placed down the spider and did not answer directly as he shouted.
"THE SPIDER QUEEN IS IN A PERELIOUS SITUATION AND REQUIRES OUR AID! WE SHALL MAKE HASTE AND GO ASSIST HER!"
The monkeys were startled by the order for they also thought that the queen of spiders is a sly bitch and will never let herself get into any kind of trouble, but as they are extremely obedient to their leader, they did not doubt his words and immediately went to pick up their weapons, the leader ordered them to leave the tents and such behind for now and just go back for them later to lessen their load, after which he ordered three monkeys to go back to the camp and explain the situation to his brother, that brother of his is extremely prideful and will never let him request for reinforcements when fighting mere goblins, thus he gave up the idea and just make the message to warn his brother that everything they did is them dancing in someone's palm.
That message will surely wound his pride and will immediately attack the hero blindly, but he has no choice, that is actually better than his brother being blind about his surroundings, and even though he does not want to admit it, his brother is stronger than him and is also the person he so much admires, thus he is not worried no matter how much reckless he will get.
After the other instructions were stated and all the soldiers made a clean formation, the leader shouted.
"MARCH!"
With heavy and organized steps the warriors stepped towards their destination, without noticing a figure on top of a tree watching everything happen, not missing even a millisecond of detail, the figure, who is of course Kabuto then after staying for a moment was swallowed by his shadow, soon the shadow completely disappeared making no one except himself aware of his existence.
_______
Meanwhile, the three monkeys that are ordered to relay the message to the other leader who stayed in the camp are running at full speed, they are not designated as scouts, thus the trio does not have any weapons in their hands for the spears they normally use will hinder their mobility because of its height. They jumped around from tree to tree, not even catching their breath as they finally realized the urgency of the situation, and at the same time, they finally recognized the threat of the human who is currently inside their forest.
_So that's why the former tribe leader is so conservative..._
After all this while, they finally learned the wisdom in the "cowardly" actions of their former leader, and of course, a lingering sense of regret filled their hearts, but they did not voice it out for they knew that it was already too late to blame themselves and can only fix the mess they got themselves in using pure power and a little luck. One of the monkeys suddenly spoke in the middle of their unwavering sprint.
"Hey, can't you feel it?"
"Feel what?" The other two who are running in a way that sandwiches the one who spoke replied simultaneously.
"Well, it's just that, I have this faint worry like I am being followed or something, I am not sure though."
If one is to observe their formation, one will see how the three monkeys are not experienced at all, their tracks can range from a branch that has fallen because of their dash to leaves that they unconsciously crushed into a paste when they ran in the land for a while, all of their tracks are not covered, they are even running in a straight line and made no effort to delude anyone who will try to tail on them, it was just like how Sophia had described it, they are a bunch of amateurs.
And these kinds of amateurs will surely run into trouble if they are not properly thought off in the shortest notice possible, well, it might just be too late for that, and not even the three of them are aware of that fact.
"You might be overthinking because of the sudden revelations a while earlier, don't think too much about it."
"Yeah that's right..."
They started to console their other member, this member of the rebels is one of the youngest and he just went to their side because his brother did so too, thus it is understandable that he will become a little paranoid when accomplishing orders, however, who knows what came into their mind, maybe it was instinct but they looked simultaneously in their middle and saw a grey-skinned man instead of red, the man is holding a monkey head without a body in his arms.
"See you in hell."
The man with three pairs of eyes said and splashed the blood dripping from the severed head into the eyes of the monkey on the right, the monkey was still in shock and cannot react in time, his vision blurred and only thick red color is visible the moment the splash of blood entered his eyes.
"MY EYES! MY EYES!"
He exclaimed again and again, and in the short time that he was blind he can feel a sharp object entering his wide open mouth, the object then pierced the roof of his mouth and entered the lower part of his brain, and the sharp object twisted inside his brain two times and his vision turned from red to black.
And after hearing the words "Two down", the monkey who got a dagger shoved in his mouth died with a muffled slump.
"YOU BASTARD!" The remaining monkey immediately jumped towards Kabuto, he smirked for he received an order that he should leave one alive when dealing with these three monkeys and he is just having a problem with how will he make it realistic for the monkey to not have any suspicion that he escaped because the enemy wants to.
Thus he intercepted the punch of the monkey using his orc bone dagger and as expected the dagger got destroyed upon impact, Kabuto widened his eyes in shock, and he immediately submerged himself into his shadow whilst simultaneously grabbing the other dagger in the mouth of the second monkey to die.
"SHOW YOURSELF!!"
The bloodshot eyes of the last monkey swept through the area, he did not even consider escaping and his original mission is already wiped out of his memories, he is only thinking of one thing, revenge.
"As you wish." A voice was heard on his back, causing him to turn, he saw a dagger closing in his face, but he punched straight to the face of his wretched enemy ignoring the dagger, causing the enemy to be sent flying several meters away, destroying some trees. Strangely enough, there is no blood, not even a drop is visible.
"DON'T YOU DARE ESCAPE!" The enraged monkey exclaimed as he leaped in the direction in which the assailant was sent flying, he however also received a straight punch into the face, sending the monkey flying like how his enemy did, but his constitution seems to be better than he stood up immediately, he then saw the assassin who have creepy six eyes, the monkey immediately attack him by jumping in front of the assailant and performed a feet sweep, the enemy jumped and kicked him in the face whilst the monkey bent his back into an unbelievable degree, dodging the attack.
Just like that, a battle of fists and kicks ensued and one could see that the assassin is an amateur, his punches may always go for a vital point but it was slow that only 3 out of 15 landed on their target, it was as if fighting with a child who took a week of Karate lessons, he knew where to strike but does not know how to, on the contrary only three out of the same amount of punches that the monkey has unleashed missed, Kabuto is about to lose, however, for some reason, he who is in a clear way to defeat is smirking, this caused the monkey to snap out of his desire for revenge and remember his mission once again.
_Goddamn my emotions got the better of me!_
He cannot help but exclaim as he immediately grabbed both hands of his enemy and brought him kneeling to the ground with sheer force, he then kicked the face of the enemy, causing the assassin's head to crack and his neck to snap into an obtuse angle.
"Heh, serves you right." The monkey smirked, brought the two monkey corpses in his shoulders, and continued his dash to the monkey rebel camp.
Meanwhile, Kabuto suddenly disappeared with a black fog, a moment later he can see himself kneeling in front of his master who is eating grapes with a pale face.
"Oh my god, don't do that again!"
It was still the same master who cared too much about them, but the fact that she did not make Kabuto retreat is a sign that her affection is not to the point of irrationality anymore.
"Phew... Now go forth once more, for I want to see how my precious cavalry will perform."
Sophia said whilst she threw a pair of metal daggers in front of Kabuto, causing him to look at her in confusion.
"Preferential Treatment."