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

Moreover, fresh material was far easier to work with. As a result, most of the houses and other structures were raised with green wood.

The climate up north was just as raw as the material used, which soon presented the fort’s inhabitants with the problem of rot. The battle against such an enemy relied on traditional methods: waiting for a drought, then coating the logs with sourpiss.

I didn’t know the exact recipe of the stuff. Only that when you saw buckets with the oily mixture, you had better keep far away from them. The buckets were usually stored around some remote corner where nobody should go. And they would remain there for a period of one to two months—until the mixture ripened.

In the process, the mixture separated into several layers. The initial oily element rose to the top while a heavy fraction condensed in the center—tar-black with a slightly viscous, jelly-like consistency. It was this very substance—after disposing of the upper fraction—that was then used to coat the lower sections of wooden structures, extending their lifespan by a significant margin.

The workers tasked with performing the job would rush through it as fast as they could with minimum amount of breathing and maximum amount of cussing. That made the spectacle hard to ignore, and the inquisitive mind locked away in the enfeebled body quickly figured out the reasons for the shudras’ distaste for the job.

The issue was that the sourpiss’ lower layers stunk bad enough to make skunks question their place in the world, if not commit suicide altogether. The stench made the job less than prestigious—most people would prefer cleaning cesspools to it. The hapless victims—I mean workers—would wrap their faces with rags soaked with fragrant herbs and stuffed their nostrils with wax plugs, but with dubious effect.

“Gods Almighty!” Beko groaned, choking on his words. “It reeks so bad!”

“I warned you to pick up the bucket carefully. If you shake it, everything will get all mixed up.

“Why do we need this thing, Ged?!”

“We’re making soup,” I replied imperturbably.

“Soup?! Oh no, no, no! I’m not eating sourpiss soup!” the ghoul shouted, mortified.

“That’s too bad, cause it’s hearty. Relax, I’m just kidding. There’s nothing about it that’s hearty. Let me just grab one more bucket, and we will go.”

“One more bucket?!”

“There’s two of them here for a reason. They can’t bear to be apart. And besides, two buckets are better than one.”

“Can we just go home? Please, Ged? It’s really late, the Carps won’t be waiting for us at this hour.”

“Sun Tzu disagrees.”

“Who is that? I don’t know him. That means he doesn’t live in Blackriver.”

“They say he was a sage and a strategist. He said lots of smart things, and wrote down even more. Do you know what he said about the rules of waging war?”

“I don’t.”

“According to him, rule number one is to never rely on your enemy not showing up for battle. Instead, rely on what you have in your hands when he does.”

“So what do we have in our hands?”

“You can see clearly that we have buckets of sourpiss. Now let’s go before the Carps really do give up waiting for us. By the way, were you lying when you said you could see well in the darkness?”

“I’m a ghoul, aren’t I? I can see better than you, but not everything. Cats can see better than me. But I can also smell. Some things. For instance, I can smell that we’re going to get thrashed. And badly.”

“Have no fear, Beko. I am a general, and you are my one-man army. I must keep you safe, for what kind of general would I be without an army? We’re one step away from victory, I assure you. Help me secure this rope, and we shall soon be bathing in the tears of our enemies.”

* * *

The carefully transported bucket didn’t reek quite as badly as a gaping chasm filled with excrement, but being in its proximity was hardly pleasant. Alas, we had no choice but to carry on. Nature hadn’t endowed me with twilight vision, and to distance from my main weapon was to run the risk of not being able to utilize it at the right moment.

Instead, my one hand was ready to grab the bucket, and the other was gripping the corner of a ragged sack thrown over a huge cage of fireflies. It was supposed to hang on the corner of the fortress, but I thought that shifting it thirty feet or so to the side wouldn’t be so terrible. Besides, this was the time for the changing of the guard in the main tower, so any sharp-eyed sentries ought to be focused on that, and not on my tactical scheming. Finally, this section of the fort was situated in a partially dead zone. That was the biggest reason why I had decided to stage the battle with the Carps precisely here.

I couldn’t see our adversaries from our current position, but I had an inkling what they were up to. The four of them were probably hanging around the barn, squirming with impatience as they waited for us to muster up the courage and show ourselves. Their minds weren’t capable of devising anything beyond such a primitive ambush. And now that night had fallen, they were feeling cold and restless. The nagging thought to abandon the plan and hit the hay was growing louder and louder. And then, come morning, they would return and have their way with us scoundrels.

Sitting quietly in the dark wasn’t something they would be doing. They were killing time shooting the breeze, their attention on the conversation and not on the cunning enemy stalking up to them, unaffected by the darkness that handicapped them.

And carrying a terrible weapon.

The saboteur’s eyes easily identified the general of the hostile army. His steps became even lighter