Alpha Zero (Alpha LitRPG Book 1) by Arthur Stone (top 5 books to read TXT) 📕

I had to become her son, and not someone pretending to be him.

The homestead amounts to a no frills single-story manor. Several service buildings stand out back, where the servants live and work. Further back, a tiny ceremonial grove conceals a modest ritualistic structure the likes of which I’d never seen back in my world. The locals refer to it as desai, which could be loosely translated as “great pain and courage.” It is a kind of hybrid between barracks and temple, where one is supposed to pray to the higher power responsible for military valor. Or, in simpler words, for murder. And not just to pray for it, but to actively develop it within.

This squat round barn is also the place where Camai dwells in between his excursions, upon which my very life depends. It has been said that he spends all his nights there, but even Blind Desu knows that this only happens in the rare periods when he isn’t warming the beds of shudra widows, which is both his privilege and his duty.

Losing her husband does not release a woman from her obligation to churn out new shudras for the Crow. Yet, as banal debauchery is frowned upon in the local society, it is therefore intricately woven into a complex system of rules and traditions—as was the case with all societies. And so the burden of bull stud fell on Camai, if for no other reason than the Crow simply lacking any other candidates for the job.

Today was a momentous day—and the reason for the clan’s subjects gathering at the homestead. On this day, Treya’s degenerate spawn was to be put on his feet yet again. That spawn being me.

Can’t argue with tradition.

I found myself playing mindlessly with the amulet brought by Teshimi. It is thanks to this very trinket that I wouldn’t be a total vegetable for the next five and a half weeks.

Oh, how pleasant it was to feel my hands and feet again.

Let alone actually move them.

I sat in a woven armchair to Treya’s right. Mother was perched upon her wooden throne, installed on the open terrace earlier this morning by the serving staff for the occasion. The throne was probably the fanciest piece of furniture in the entire homestead.

Staring coldly over the heads of the people who came to pay their respects to the Crow Clan and its leader, mother pronounced her sentence word by ruthless word.

“Teshimi took that which belongs to the Crow. Teshimi did this not once and not twice, but four times. That much is evident by reviewing the spices ledger.”

Teshimi, you foolish bastard. Why were you so awful at covering your tracks? I don’t actually fault him, because I understand the reason for his foolishness. He wanted his kids to grow up into people of consequence, and that costs money around here. The natives aren’t beasts—their babies aren’t capable of developing their ORDER skills independently, by filling up their spiritual centers and surrounding them with sets of attributes. If you aren’t a noble with wealth and connections, you have to really hustle for your offspring to reach the third, maybe even fourth degree, by the time they reach early adolescence. From that point on, things get a little easier.

And so Teshimi hustled. His legal salary wasn’t enough, but an industrious individual dealing with spices wouldn’t want for opportunities to enrich his mistress while taking care of his own. In all likelihood, he first started with cultivation and harvesting, as accounting for those stages rested on him alone. And for as long as he did it neatly and carefully, nobody was the wiser. But then he began to grow bolder—and all because of a new group of swindlers that turned up in our lands. Calling themselves the traders’ guild, they were the apparent blue bloods of the profiteering world, and their representatives wasted no time filling the heads of many with dangerous dreams, promising aid in unlocking any attribute. In exchange for payment, naturally. All five of them should the buyer so wish.

Teshimi adored his children. So he began pulling from the field in greater numbers—enough to make a visible dent in the accounting ledgers.

And that is why Teshimi is a dead man.

“He who steals from the clan makes himself enemy of the clan,” mother continued pontificating. “It is tantamount to declaration of war. And the Crow Clan is up to the challenge. As the izumo of the clan’s leader, Camai shall fight Teshimi to the death. Teshimi may choose any weapon from the desai of my home. Guyom, Dectori and Maguma, help Teshimi make his selection.”

Her judgment pronounced, Treya turned towards me and stroked my hair gently.

“Is my boy hungry?”

I struggled to fight back nausea at the thought of food, but didn’t let it show, shaking my head instead.

“I’m tired. May I lie down?”

“Just a little bit longer, son. Things are going to get interesting. Camai is going to punish a bad man.”

I dared to object. “Teshimi is not a bad man.”

Voicing an objection wasn’t common, and largely because doing so was utterly useless. Treya’s attitude towards me was irrational, to put it mildly. I was her only and favorite son, the source of all her broken dreams, evocative of great pity and longing—and yet, for all that, I might as well be furniture for all the attention she paid to my opinions.

“Teshimi is a very bad man,” mother repeated patiently. “Teshimi took something that belongs to the clan. He robbed you, my precious child. And for that, Teshimi shall be punished.”

The nausea was bad enough—but at least I was used to it, as it often accompanied the amulet’s return. On top of that, now I was going to have to sit here and suffer through this butchery. In a