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

Attributes: none

Skills: none

States: none

Already quite unusual, the evening was getting more interesting by the minute.

It turned out that by “changing” mother didn’t mean slipping into one of her less threadbare dresses. For that she would have indeed needed a maidservant, as buttoning up those inflexible corsets independently required nothing short of rubber joints.

Nay, it wasn’t a dress she wanted. For the first time in my memory, Treya was donning armor. Not even when a band of raiders had attacked the windmill a mere couple of hundred paces from the homestead did she resort to such serious measures.

The armor looked quite striking, too (Lacking the requisite knowledge, I’m reticent to offer a more technical term). All I can say is that it was fashioned from some material that resembled super-thick leather. And if it was indeed leather, the hide hadn’t been taken from a cow or a goat, but from a creature so unconventional in form that even the most bleeding-heart animal rights activists back on Earth would likely hold their objections to murdering the sucker.

The armor’s relief was a marvel to behold, each component distinct in flawless arrangement. It looked more like a superhero costume than a Medieval suit of armor. As for the helm, it looked strangely similar to a motorcycle helmet, despite this world being far behind the invention of motor transport.

Camai’s helm was similar, though bulkier and not nearly as intricate in design. Yet, it looked more capable of actually offering protection as opposed to just looking pretty. He didn’t need to equip it, either—the man never parted with it to begin with, same as his sword.

Mother’s oddities didn’t end there. Snatching a key off the string hanging around her neck, she used it to open a long and narrow cabinet, then produced something that could almost rival the throne for the title of the fanciest thing in the homestead. But unlike the throne, this was an object I was seeing for the first time.

Was it a spear? If not, what else would one call it?

A word surfaced from the recesses of my consciousness—a long-forgotten relic from my past life. “Naginata,” a pole weapon from feudal Japan. It came closest to describing this armament, with its longish staff tipped with a curved, saber-like blade. I knew too little of Medieval weaponry to make a closer analysis of the differences between this and its Earthly counterpart. One thing was nevertheless clear—the weapon’s purpose was to cut, slice and stab.

So I might as well call it “naginata.”

Mother approached the desk and shoved into a plain cloth bag all the things she had produced earlier when speaking with Camai: the abunai, the nephrite-encrusted coffer, and the silk pouch.

Her next move came as a surprise. She helped me up, then hung the bag over my shoulder.

“Camai, bring the armchair out on the terrace for my son. We must welcome our guests as befitting proper hosts.”

What kind of guests could these be that my presence was called for in welcoming them? I barely ever poked my nose outside in the light of day, let alone after twilight. In fact, this would be the first such occurrence in memory.

And then there was the Japanese spear in my mother’s hands. No, this wouldn’t be your typical guest reception.

Decent people weren’t typically greeted by hosts armed to the teeth.

* * *

I was never particularly loquacious back on Earth, and now, when uttering so much as a short sentence drained me as much as sprinting up six flights of stairs, even less so. Moreover, I had an image to uphold—a cripple deficient in mental acumen as much as physical fitness. So the less I spoke, the fewer chances I had of undermining that image in the eyes of others.

Besides, what exactly would I say? My flummoxed state was on full display anyhow. No words were needed, so I kept silent all the while.

I didn’t sit, but rather fell into the armchair the ever-unperturbed Camai had placed upon the plank floor of the terrace, the weakness in my cotton legs further aided by my mind’s recognition of the long objects glimmering in the night’s darkness.

There was Auntie Hiemo. She was easily recognizable by her figure—almost nonexistent for some tastes, exquisite for others. And there was Teiko, a timid fourteen-year-old girl and an orphan, taken in by Bousha, our tenderhearted cook. Speaking of Bousha, there she lay, next to her own daughter, Tamiko. And many, many others.

Our entire serving staff, dead. And, by the look of things, the poor souls had met their death while in their beds. For most, it was bloodless, with only a few having soiled their nightshirts with trickles of blood from either their nose or mouth.

This realm in which I dragged out my miserable existence brimmed with oddities. There were stories of dead people moving on their own—while exhibiting cannibalistic tendencies. This, however, didn’t appear to be such a case. Someone had dragged all these dead to the terrace and arranged them in a neat row. The mysterious decorators had even tried to sort them by height: children on the left, and on the night, the night guard Dumonuro, having tragically failed in his duties.

Death was never pleasant. But when it took someone close to you, it was frightening to boot.

Now imagine witnessing death take not one but eleven people without a sound. The sheer terror would surely knock a person of sound mind and body off their feet.

Let alone someone like me.

Camai and mother seemed to be hearing something, but that had to do with their special abilities. Those might not even be sounds, but rather emanations of death itself, capable of being picked up by people like them.

Nothing about this place surprised me anymore...

The killers stood in a separate row, and, unlike our servants, were quite alive.