Side Story 9 - Karroch (Ft. Perpetual Confusion)

The legendary Karroch, a being that had risen through the realms as he fought valiantly. Born on a small planet, he had to fight for his tribe from birth. At the age of 19, he tamed his first beast and begun his journey as a beast tamer.

He was a true genius, and his father couldn’t be any more proud. He reached D-grade at the age of 23 as he became the youngest elder the tribe had ever seen. He already had a dozen tamed beasts at that point, all of them D-grade like him.

The war with enemy tribes escalated as the jungle-filled planet that he grew up in worsened. A tribe leader had recently fallen as he tried to overcome his limits and reach C-grade by challenging one of the Ancient Beasts, which opened up a power vacuum.

To claim their Pond of Enlightenment, a treasure created by a C-grade ancestor of the tribe, the other tribes, Karrach’s included, invaded. The tribe was far weaker, with their strongest warrior dead and only a few dozen D-grade elders remaining to stand their ground.

This meant that the main fighting was between the different invaders. Karroch had exemplified himself and led the eastern front with his beasts. Like a knife through butter, he slaughtered his way through the frontlines of another tribe, and as only an early D-grade killed a middle D-grade elder from another tribe.

He was hailed as a hero, and his conquest would only continue. Like a monster on the battlefield, he tore through his enemies, and when he was not in the war, he fought beasts in the deepest parts of the jungle. The creatures he didn’t slay, he tamed as his army grew.

He soon reached middle D-grade, becoming one of the strongest elders in his tribe. When he reached late D-grade, he was named tribe chieftain.

He was 51 that year.

The next century or so was more relaxed than the last half-century had been. The war was over, and a balance had been reestablished. Karroch took many wives during his time and had nearly a hundred children. A bit less than the usual chieftain, but he had never been that interested in the opposite sex.

Not because the other sex didn’t find him appealing. His profound tusks and long arms were making him a much-sought-after mate, and his powerful build and potent abilities only amplified this. He was the epitome of trolls, tall and slender, yet packing incredible strength.

After 112 years spent mainly leading the tribe and expanding his family, he set out once more - his goal, this time more ambitious than ever. He would do something not done in generations… reach the mythical C-grade. The realm of ancestors and the mightiest beasts on the planet.

A horde of D-grades at his behest, he entered the deepest parts of the jungles.

For the next four years, no one heard anything from him. Yet no one dared invade as some of his beasts remained back at the tribe’s capital, confirming that the chieftain still lived.

In that fourth year, something rocked the planet. Both figuratively and literally. The mighty battle between one of the Ancient Beasts. Their attacks shook the ground as the nearby villages did all they could to survive and document what happened.

The battle was only a few hours, but what appeared was not what anyone had expected.

Karroch, riding the back of the Ancient Beast, his aura clearly similar to that of the beast beneath him.

From there, his rise to the top was secured. He forcefully united the tribes, only the largest of them all posing a challenge as they had a C-grade ancestor who had hidden away to prolong his life. He, too, fell as Karroch made his conquest.

A few decades later, the entire planet was united, and every single Ancient Beast tamed or slain.

From there, he set his eyes to the stars in the hope of reaching further beyond.

He battled powerful enemies, dove into dungeons, and completed challenges. He participated in Events created by the system whenever he could to accumulate Records to keep advancing. At the same time, his empire back home expanded, many of his beasts left behind as they got too weak to keep up with him.

Too weak for him, but more than powerful enough to conquer other plants and be true powerhouses – the type of creatures that others had only heard of in legends were but outdated pets for him.

B-grade was quickly reached as he didn’t stop. Planets united in droves; he set his eyes to expand and conquer more and more.

At A-grade, he remained a genius. Hailed as the greatest being his race had ever seen already at B-grade, he was unstoppable. His momentum was only improving as he won a difficult Event made by the system, allowing him to improve even further. He beat out millions of other A-grades to stand at the top, which became his impetus to reach S-grade and beyond.

Mighty as ever, he once more proved his genius at S-grade. He dove deep into Nevermore, conquering floor after floor. He encountered other factions and made new allies along the way. Nevermore was a dangerous place to even gods if you went lower, and Karroch planned on going as far as he could.

He had to leave at times to go outside and find new challenges there. Once more, he participated in events and once more improved exemplary. He truly felt like nothing could stop him.

At least he thought no one could until he met one of the true monsters of the S-grade. Brimstone’s Chosen, a powerful S-grade genius who had received the Brimstone Hegemon’s true blessing. The Brimstone Hegemon was the master of the Brimstone Conglomerate, an organization with dozens of gods under its employ and had a presence in nearly all the universes.

For the first time in forever, Karroch lost to someone many levels beneath himself. If he had simply gone by Identify, the woman shouldn’t have been a threat, but clearly, her strength was not that easily quantified. He lost nine out of ten of his many tamed beasts, all of them at S-grade like himself.

She seemed to take it as a wonderful gift as she gleefully slaughtered the beasts he had put so much into raising and nurturing. Many had been his companions for millennia, but he could do nothing as they were turned to ash beneath her flames.

He had attacked in rage and managed to give her many wounds, even severing her arm at one point. But… he was simply not strong enough to win.

Karroch wanted revenge… but he was too weak, and even if he was stronger, what could he possibly do to a god? Much less a god recognized as being in the upper echelons of the Multiverse like the Brimstone Hegemon. It would just be courting death… so he retreated to lick his wounds.

He thought that would be the end of it… but it turned out the Chosen was angry at failing to slay him. She went to look for him and found his empire. He didn’t know it happened before it was over as he had hidden away in the corner of another universe.

Karroch only learned a hundred years after it was done that Brimstone’s Chosen had annihilated the entire empire. Turned the planets to dust and employed the power of the Brimstone Conglomerate. Even a god had descended and helped with the destruction.

He felt broken… but a burning rage was also building up within him. He pushed himself like never before as he kept progressing through the S-rank. He already knew that he had a bounty on his head as the spiteful woman wanted to hunt him down.

So he hid, and he improved. Such a powerful organization’s pressure undoubtedly pushed him further as he finally accomplished what many thought impossible.

The once lowly troll from a small planet where C-grades were considered the pinnacle stepped into godhood as he realized his divinity.

An army of beasts far stronger than before now served him, hordes of S-grades that could overrun most organization of the multiverse. Yet even as a god… the Brimstone Conglomerate did not let up. So Karroch did what anyone would do…

He tracked down Brimstone’s Chosen, a demigod at that point, only a single step away from godhood. He cornered her and gave her the most agonizing death he could imagine, making sure to record her screams and suffering. It took her days before she was finally allowed to die, and her remains were fed to the beasts.

Karroch then distributed the recordings and laughed as he finally accomplished his goal. Now… all he had to do was survive.

Tracking down a god was difficult and especially Karroch was hard to pin down as he never stayed within his realm. The reason Karroch never went to his realm was that he knew it would mean his death. Only a far more powerful god could slay a god within his realm… and the Brimstone Hegemon was far more powerful than him.

He needed time - time for the Brimstone Hegemon’s animosity to decrease. He continued to damage the other god’s conglomerate with the hope of making him take away the bounty. The Brimstone had always cared more about profits than honor or respect, so if Karroch made it worth it to release the bounty… it should be fine.

What he didn’t know was the Hegemon’s chosen had been the newly chosen wife of the Brimstone Hegemon and possessed a powerful bloodline…

The poor rogue god’s life became a lot more hectic after that. When the 90th universe was integrated, Karroch didn’t get even a smidgeon of benefits as he was too busy trying not to die. But it came at an opportune time as it meant that the Brimstone Conglomerate and the Brimstone Hegemon were busy with exploiting the new universe’s integration.

Karroch kept being a rogue god for the next three full eras too. Born in the 89th era in the 54th universe, he didn’t get a single benefit from any tutorial or integration… until it was finally time for another universe to be integrated.

--

Karroch sat in the void, hidden from sight as he had finalized his sponsorship for the 93rd era’s tutorials. He didn’t manage to get a lot, but he did get some.

What the system required to sponsor a tutorial differed widely. Sometimes individuals were given a quest with the opportunity to sponsor, while others have to actively pursue to be a sponsor. This meant that even non-gods could end up sponsoring tutorials.

At times, even those who were only in the late C or even B-grade managed to do it. Granted, it mainly happened if they chose to offer up their legacies for the system to hope someone in the tutorial would get it and result in their name being remembered.

Waiting expectantly, he finally got the notification.

He had gotten only a single tutorial… of 1200 humans.

Karroch was confused and enraged until he saw the last part of the notification:

Volatility level: 99,9%

Seed level for planet Earth: 99,9%

Record Distribution Level: 99,9%

Customization Level: 0,3%

The god sat wide-eyed as he stared at it… the notification meant that the tutorial he was about to be the primary sponsor would be… chaotic and unpredictable. However, the seed level meant that it was predicted that the tutorial attendees would place in the 0.1-percentile… which was very good for him.

As for the third part… that played a lot into the first two. It meant that while he would be the primary sponsor, the Records of many different gods would appear. Items imbued with their Records, Challenge Dungeons, and whatnot would be present.

Once again, this could be both good and bad…

And the last part – customization level – meant that Karroch would have nearly no say in how the tutorial was set up or designed. This played into the high volatility level, too, as the system would be directly in charge of most things.

It would be in all tutorials to some degree… setting ground rules and determining the strength of the beasts and monsters that the attendees would face. His not having nearly any way meant that he would have no way of designing the “story.”

As he scoured through the details, some things instantly caught his eye. The first of which was the final boss…

King of the Forest.

A level 130+ unique lifeform chosen from the outside world.

The average level of the final boss in the tutorials on Planet Earth was… 102. And those tended to be weaker monsters or creatures.

Everything about the tutorial left him confused. What could cause it all to be like that?

His answer came only a few hours after he got the notification from the system.

He stared in fright as the void in front of him parted, and a figure stepped through. He had hidden behind countless wards, and he had a divine ability to hide … how?

Out stepped an old man with a white beard, an eternal smile hanging on his face. Karroch instantly recognized the figure.

A Primordial…

The aura the being gave off passively made him feel suppressed and inferior, his instincts telling him that what stood before him was a being on an entirely different level. While he feared the Brimstone Hegemon… he was absolutely terrified before the Primordial.

Eversmile clearly didn’t bother to suppress his own aura either, as he smilingly addressed him.

“My friend, I have come here with a proposition…”

That day, he signed a contract with a smiling devil.

--

Karroch’s head was spinning as the beginning of the tutorial grew nearer. Never had he felt so much attention on him… well, not him, but the tutorial he had randomly been assigned as the primary sponsor of.

Several Primordials clearly showed interest, and he felt their manipulations of fate running in the undercurrents. He personally had no clue about the concept of fate, as it was in no way related to his path. He had a tamed beast with powers of divination, but all that beast could tell him was how complicated whatever was going on was.

When the day of the tutorial finally started, he realized how little he could actually do. His Records inspired the tutorial, and he saw that some of the dungeon bosses were echoes of past enemies and allies. The Great White Stag was an echo of a B-grade beast he once fought and managed to tame. The boar and badger were the same, the badger being inspired by a D-grade creature he had once had a hard fight with.

His only real influence on the tutorial was through birds he could conjure and place there. He wasn’t even allowed to have any creature associated with him in there.

This is fine too… I just need to keep an eye on things.

--

It went wrong right from the fucking start. Karroch was practically ripping his hair out as he saw the first 24-hours already be a god damn disaster. He knew of the plans of the many powerful gods, but that careful machination was instantly broken.

Instead, a human who was supposed to die survived as he ripped apart three fellow humans several levels above himself. While the more bestial part of Karroch approved of it, he began to fear what it could lead to… would they blame him, the poor primary sponsor, if their plans fell apart?

That one human proved to a tempest of destruction for the tutorial as a whole and all the plans within it. He killed one of the important actors just to make everything worse. But then Karroch felt his luck turn as the dark omen that was when the archer found a challenge dungeon.

Wait… that one is related to the Malefic Viper? Does the Malefic One even have challenge dungeons? No other god or even fellow Primordials mentioned it…

But then Karroch looked at the stats of the dungeon… and saw that every single prior person who tried it had failed. It was only one person per era that could attempt it… Yeah, it will be fine.

The next month was peaceful once more as he just observed. He saw the other gods mess with things and try to fix their carefully built scenario, and quite honestly, things appeared to be back on track. Karroch let out a sigh of relief. The other gods had it under control… how could he have thought that a single mortal could ruin their plans? Silly him.

--

The archer exited the dungeon after 30 days… and instantly, Karroch was dumbstruck. WHAT THE FUCK!?

Some-fucking-how the human hadn’t just completed the dungeon, but Karroch couldn’t even identify his level anymore. To make it worse, he felt something on him that only those who had stepped into divinity could feel.. .the Divine Mark of a Chosen.

Chosen of the Malefic Viper…

He had to reiterate. WHAT THE FUCK.

What had happened in that damn dungeon? Worse, he felt something else… a beast he had placed with a friend with the Court of Shadows communicated to him even more news. The Malefic Viper had exited his many-era-long seclusion.

At that point, Karroch got convinced that the human was a true monster. That he was there just to sew chaos. This belief got even more amplified when he saw him nearly slay the subject of Eversmile in a brief duel. Though Karroch was confused why the human-turned-undead had made it so the two would meet…

--

Oh, the human had gained a skill related to Umbra… Karroch found that quite interesting considering his connection to the Malefic Viper. He looked quite stupid practicing it too. Karroch observed all this with his summoned birds…

And for some reason, he felt like the human looked straight back at him through those birds. Once again, a monster.

--

Yeah, he had been worried for nothing. Of course, the Primordials had a plan to lure the stupid human into an ambush and get rid of him. With the human spear wielder, the camp leader the subject was a part of, and all of those other people surrounding him, he was sure to die.

--

Okay, so he didn’t die, but now he was in the inner zone badly wounded. Hopefully, he would die in there or at least stay put.

--

Even better, he just entered the first dungeon. Sure, he was well-matched against the badgers with his poison resistance, but he was still heavily outmatched. Especially the Alpha should be borderline impossible for him to slay.

--

Alright, he won that one by upgrading his Powershot skill.

These things, but surely the Den Mother would…

Okay… she died too. Why did the human seem to be so pissed during the fight too? He fought like a monster… though that did make sense, considering he surely was one.

--

With the volatile human gone, things in the outer zone of the tutorial actually went well. The metal caster even went and had some substantial progress in the inner area by hunting down beasts.

Karroch had to admit that he was talented to a ridiculous degree. His ability to manipulate mana was indeed prodigious. The amount of mental strength it took to control so many flying weapons at once was impressive, and his overall combat ability was very high.

Was it at the level of a multiversal genius? Likely not, but he was an interesting human in his own right.

The god also did a small cheer when the metal caster won the battle and stood victorious on the battlefield. Not all was well, though, as Eversmile had to interfere to save the caster’s life. He could only barely stabilize him, and even that would likely have imposed heavy penalties on the Primordial…

Not long after, the Augur came into being, and Karroch breathed out a sigh of relief. Despite how disastrous things had seemed, everything appeared to work out in the end. As long as the metal caster didn’t meet the human monster, he should come out with a very decent score. Karroch almost got giddy at what rewards the system would give him for that…

--

… the monster was progressing faster than expected. He even unlocked some time-manipulation skill somehow during the second dungeon. Was his class that good to offer a skill touching on such high-level concepts? But he also appeared to get stronger after… did he experience a sudden epiphany?

He somehow managed to defeat the Stag with some bizarre fucked up corruption of the ritual… Karroch was astonished by it all… and quite honestly thoroughly entertained.

--

Karroch was now sure that the human had some kind of powerful perception skill. He adapted far too well within the sewers, and he also proved his talents in dark mana. He would, without a doubt, be a talented recruit for the Court of Shadows. But he was already claimed.

--

WHY!?

The metal caster went and acted like a total idiot and confronted the monster. Karroch could only stare in disbelief as he saw the caster taunt him. The archer looked weird… and then he moved.

The caster was smashed in seconds.

And then… the picture froze, and he received no information from all his birds. Karroch could feel the remnants of time magic in the air as all of his summoned birds slowly became able to detect once more. The corpse was gone… and a new presence had appeared.

Karroch felt it for but a moment before every single of his birds in the immediate area was dispersed. Only a single still-picture was relayed to him of a scaled man standing there, and the corpse was gone. But that scaled man… the Malefic One?

What is all this?

The chosen genius of Eversmile had experienced true death, and his corpse was brought away. The Malefic Viper had appeared inside the tutorial in person, and now only a single living being remained.

This was a survival-type tutorial. Karroch would get rewarded based upon the overall performance of those in the tutorial… and with only a single survivor, he couldn’t see his gains being substantial.

So many resources were wasted. The 99.9% volatility was truly showing itself once more. While the rewards would still be okay as long as that last human survived, It would be far worse than if everyone had just done the tutorial as intended…

His only consolation was that Eversmile had kept up his end of the bargain and helped him against Brimstone. He had been given an item to help hide his karma and make him practically impossible to find for any but the strongest of gods. And while the Brimstone Hegemon was strong… he was far from the pinnacle.

Time passed as Karroch kept observing. It took a while for his birds to reform inside the tutorial, but luckily he didn’t have to wait that long to figure out what was happening. The monster had entered the final dungeon.

If he clears that one… yeah, it will turn out okay-ish.

As long as he wasn’t stupid enough to battle the King of the Forest, there should at least be one survivor. And surely the human monster would be wise enough to just back out of that fight?

--

He wasn’t wise enough to back out of that fight.

Karroch practically ripped his tusks out as he saw the human being played with by the King. The Unique Lifeform was an unfair creature that was one of the strongest, if not the strongest final boss of any of the tutorials for the planet… to win against it was impossible. It was one of the Kings, after all.

He observed the human slowly devolve into despair as he desperately tried all of his weapons and tools. Karroch shook his head as he was unsure if he should even keep observing. Would it even make any sense to-

The Dark Curse suddenly descended from the Bead of the Nest Watcher. Karroch looked up as he saw the human land, yet another blow with the Horde leader’s Tusk. The Tusk was an item explicitly made to harm the King, and quite frankly, the only way to truly break his defenses.

The Bead would hurt his power and perception, while the Tusk would harm his defensive capabilities. The energies were amplifying one-another. It was proof of how lower-ranked beings pour all their power and Records into something they could still create extraordinary items…

But… It doesn’t matter.

A weakened King of the Forest was still something the human couldn’t handle. He tried, but it was truly futile to-

The human manipulated time and threw a small shard into the hole left by the Tusk earlier. A tremendous explosion of light and dark appeared as the energy seared the King from the inside-out. The explosion was far stronger than any prior attack and was more than enough to straight-out kill most uninjured early D-grades.

Yet… the King still stood.

Karroch, when the King got up, knew the fight was over.

It continued for a while with them just slugging it out… but the human couldn’t win.

Without the intended item, the Crystal Crown of the Great White Stag, he had no way of blocking the King’s trump card. It was the only item that one could get that could allow one not to have their soul shattered… the crown had the souls of the many deer and stags killed in the Lucenti Plains. It could form a barrier around any person or a small party and block out the wave of soul energy by sacrificing all the souls, along with the soul of the Great White Stag.

But the human didn’t have that item. Instead, he had created the shard - a combination of the Crystal Crown, the Gland of the Den Mother, and his own alchemy-profession. While that shard was no-doubt powerful… it wasn’t enough.

The Tusk was what was meant to truly to the damage. Using it was a weapon made to repeatedly hurt the King instead of some explosion. While the first hit would be the strongest, it was still the most potent weapon available. But the human didn’t have that anymore either. He had nothing left.

So when the mask fell, Karroch sighed. He had actually begun rooting for the human a bit.

The human fell as expected, the outer shell of his soul utterly shattered. Had the King shown mercy or-

And then the entire situation turned. The human kept moving; like a beast, he moved with no abandon as he pummeled the creature. His body broke apart as he reached levels he never should. Karroch felt the pure aura the human was given off. One of the utter defiance, dominance. It was almost… primal.

Karroch could only stare in even more disbelief than before as he saw both creatures slowly break apart. One by his own energy overflowing and the other due to the constant attacks. It did not look like a fight between a pinnacle being but a desperate monster trying to fight off a ruthless monster.

He didn’t understand any of it. The human shouldn’t be able to move. It was impossible… yet he did.

When even Karroch couldn’t determine who would actually die, it all just ended. His connection to the tutorial world was lost, and he got a notification.

--

In a tutorial that could only be described – in the gentlest of terms, as an utter shitshow, where nothing went as planned, a single human still walked out. Karroch, a god caught in the middle of the machinations of gods far more powerful and influential than himself, perhaps the one to know most of what happened.

The last-second repairs and redirections of fate, resources Karroch would never be able to afford invested, all of it ended up resulting in a single notification…

Tutorial sequence completed.

Congratulations! Your tutorial has given birth to a Progenitor of the 93rd universe.

Overall assessment: 99,99%

As the primary sponsor of the tutorial, you have gone above and beyond expectations.

That day, Karroch broke through the barrier to the 4th layer of divinity and became an Intermediate God.

A poor weak god caught in the middle of circumstances outside of his understanding the biggest winner besides the Progenitor himself.

Subsequently… it was also the day that Jake got one of his biggest fans.