D.J. Rintoul

Ruthless V3Ch34-Duel Part 1

James led his mixed team of humans and monsters over the border into the swamp.

Dave and Damien took up the leads to his left and right.

There was an immediately noticeable shift in the terrain. The firm soil of the Fisher Kingdom gave way to soft, moist ground, which eventually turned to a general feeling of mush beneath their feet.

It was increasingly reminiscent of James’s visit to the Dead Marsh, though he was glad that whoever the Ruler was, he or she hadn’t flooded...

Ruthless V3Ch33-The Home Front

After the wolves had calmed and ceased their howling, after James had sent an announcement explaining that the wolves’ howling was good news rather than some kind of monster attack, and after he had described the situation with the neighbors and his thinking to all the monsters present, James returned to the apartment for a few minutes.

Even if he was certain he would come back either victorious or with a new ally, he wanted to let Mina know he was going somewhere. Otherwise she’d w...

Ruthless V3Ch32-Preparations for Battle Part 2

After he had announced the establishment of the Fisher Kingdom’s first dungeon, James returned to the apartment through the same route by which he’d left it.

“So that was what you needed some time to yourself for?” Mina asked, raising an eyebrow playfully.

James nodded. “Well, that, and honestly, I just wanted to get away from people asking me for direction for a little while.”

“That’s going to be your everyday reality, you know,” Mina said, furrowing her b...

Re: Butterfly 57. Stay at Home

Adon walked the long and lonely path through the darkness that had daunted him last time.

It was quieter than he remembered here. Adon’s inner voice wasn’t taunting him now. The success of his last visit had done a lot for his confidence.

So it became a matter of retracing his steps. Trying to understand the geography of this place a bit better.

Adon had a sense of where things were. He knew he wasn’t near healing magic now, because he had deliberately not come here lo...

Ruthless V3Ch31-Fisher Kingdom Business

In the morning, James got up early and made his family a hearty breakfast.

He used a frying pan that someone had recovered from one of the old apartments, flames that he could generate from his own body and control at will, and ingredients he’d found in Carol’s Retail. It really was a brave new world.

That was the best way James could think of to tell his closest people that he was home again. Ideally, they would all associate the times when he was at home with the sound and s...

Re: Butterfly 56. Nesting Phase

You laid your eggs? Adon’s tone was colored by a mixture of nervousness and excitement.

I did, Goldie replied. Her inner voice carried that same weariness Adon had already noticed.

You sound tired, Goldie. Are you okay?

I think so, she replied. I told you there would, ah, recovery time…

Adon was immediately worried.

Can I come up? he asked. He tried to keep the fear out of his voice. He had no idea how har...

Ruthless V3Ch30-Preparations for Battle Part 1

“When you say, ‘two neighbors we might need to go to war with,’ I guess the first thing I should ask is why,” James said. “But honestly, what I really want to know is whether they’re human or monster.”

“Still not fighting humans,” Mina said, smiling thinly. “Is that surprising? You mentioned there are hardly any human Rulers anyway.”

“But hundreds of monster Rulers,” he replied. “Which means our kind are going to work overtime to try and even out those ...

Re: Butterfly 55. Leaving Home

Should I have told him that I feel a connection to my past life too? Rosslyn asked herself for the fourth time since her meeting with the caterpillar Adon. And again, she shook her head and dismissed the idea. I would just sound like a fraud. I have only flashes of memory and vague intuitions. It sounded as if he remembered most of his past life. Enough to be a defining element in his present identity. And maybe even multiple lives?

She had been replaying the encounter...

Ruthless V3Ch29-Home At Last

James led his new followers across the vast landscape that separated the old law office building from the Fisher Kingdom. He led them through the latter part of the day and after the darkness faded into night.

Unlike the trip to the firm office, which had been relaxed, almost like a hot air balloon ride, James wanted this one to be quick. He was a little apprehensive about the growth of the territories he remembered traveling near. He couldn’t help worrying that something might poke i...

Re: Butterfly 54. Crow

Adon’s energy ball shot forward from between his mandibles, straight toward the fascinated crow.

As he watched, it struck the crow between the eyes. The projectile kept moving after hitting, as if the crow’s body provided almost no resistance. It burned a neat hole through the center of the beast’s head, and then it emerged through the other side, its arc seemingly almost unchanged from the trip through the crow’s skull. The energy ball kept falling through the air behind the cr...

Ruthless V3Ch28-Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

“James will be back home early tomorrow, then?” Mina confirmed.

“Correct,” the Artificial Spider said.

“He had better be,” she muttered. “James is not going to leave me stuck with all this Fisher Kingdom business. He said he wanted to be a conqueror. That means he runs things, not his poor wife. I already have the baby…”

A knock came at the door.

“The next group is here.” Yulia’s soft voice carried through the wall. She lowered it. “Should I t...

Re: Butterfly 53. The Law of Nature

Edited to reflect that two eggs survived Adon's previous attack, not one. Thanks, carebear!

After Adon and the Princess said their goodbyes, he hopped up onto the side of the box of scraps the Vendetta Ants had died pursuing.

In what felt like a miracle, the cardboard seemed to be completely untouched by the flames. But of course, Adon knew it was not a miracle. The actual targets of the Princess’s magical fire were cinders now. But nothing else in the garden had burned as far a...

Re: Butterfly 52. Inter-Species Dialogue

Edited to clarify some end of chapter decisions!

Magic? Adon thought. I guess I do have magic now. A little bit. Just healing, though. It’s not exactly useful for killing enemies. He didn’t know if that was something the Princess would be impressed by. And he wasn’t sure about the idea of talking to her.

Adon’s body felt hot and stiff with tension. The idea of talking to a human would have been intimidating enough without it being royalty. Adon had spoken...

V3Ch27-Hallucination

James stared into the space where he imagined the Goblin King’s eyes were.

He still couldn’t see the figure, but since he held the Goblin King’s throat in his hand, he had a pretty good idea of where to look for eye contact.

It was fortunate that his senses were superhuman. Even if the Goblin King could create a convincing false version of himself, James could still feel the vibrations of the real figure’s footsteps on the ground. Could still sense the real Goblin King’s...

V3Ch26-The Goblin Battle Part 3

As the next group of Goblin Knights prepared to charge, Duncan used his power to cast a low energy, but highly effective, illusion on the human.

This was a trick he had played on more than a dozen humans at once before, and that was before the System crowned him the Goblin King. Even if this warrior had some sort of anti-magic power, Duncan hoped it would get through somehow.

It should give the impression that he faced twenty times the number of Goblins as were actually there. The...

Re: Butterfly 51. Vendetta

Goldie gestured with her forelimbs to mimic a mouth opening and closing. She obviously wanted to know what had happened. She could tell that something important had taken place.

Adon activated Telepathy for a split second, just to send a quick message.

Used all my Mana, can’t talk!

Then he deactivated Telepathy and returned to silence. A quick check of his Status revealed he had just one point of Mana left.

Adon wanted to delve back into the magical void and...

Ruthless V3Ch25-The Goblin Battle Part 2

Well, there are a lot more of these things than I was expecting, James thought. My quality definitely beats theirs. Who was it that said quantity has a quality all its own, though?

His Non-Elemental Mana ball bounced off the ground, and he used the opportunity to survey the battlefield from above. The sight was not reassuring.

The Goblins weren’t organized in any particular fashion, but he definitely counted in the high hundreds of heads. Probably over a thousa...

Re: Butterfly 50. Magic Breakthrough

Adon found himself in a field of darkness that was qualitatively different than it had ever been before.

On previous visits, he had found himself in a black infinity that seemed simultaneously empty and inaccessible. A void that had the property of being closed off to him. The black space was not a place he could move around in, except for in the sense that he could reach out to the orange orb glowing at the center of his field of view.

Now the orange orb floated above him like a ...

Re: Butterfly 49. Communication and Miscommunication

Adon opened his Status back up, and he accessed the Evolution Store.

There was no aimless wandering this time. He had clear ideas of the things he wanted, and he looked for them efficiently, almost impatiently. He felt a terrible sense of wasted time. Maybe he was just filled with a burning desire to make some achievement because he still felt a raw wound that had been exposed in his conversation with Goldie.

Mana Manipulation III was available now, for 200 Evolution Points. He ad...

Re: Butterfly 47. Magic Training Part 2

Adon moved dozens of sparks of Mana from his antennae to his Silk Spinner. Back and forth. Under his belly and over his back. A repeated pattern that only increased in complexity as he kept adding more sparks from the core of orange light within him.

He managed to divide his focus enough to keep the sparks moving on the exterior of his body and delve again into the darkness where his source of power was.

The orange light was noticeably dimmer than when he had started. Adon could t...

Re: Butterfly 48. Mana Manipulation II

Yes! Yes!!! I feel great. I’ve done it!

Adon still didn’t know quite what he’d done, but the feeling of accomplishment nevertheless filled him with boundless energy and enthusiasm.

He carefully shoved his sparks of Mana back whence they had come, into that orange orb inside. He pulled back the Mana he had been using to enhance himself too. Nothing would go to waste if he could help it. Today was going to be a day of many Mana experiments.

With those t...

V3Ch24-The Goblin Battle Part 1

As the shapes of the approaching enemies became clear, James raised an eyebrow. The image that presented itself before his eyes only created further questions.

Four Mole People moved forward—and seated on their backs, hunched figures sat, dressed in ragged clothing. The figures were somewhere between the size of a grown adult human and an adolescent. Like overgrown children. Their yellow-green skin sprouted unruly tufts of gray hair all over. Each of the humanoid creatures clutched a ...

V3Ch23-Into the Labyrinth

“So we need to make up our minds,” Mitzi summed up.

“I would say so,” Alan agreed.

“I still think we made the right decision back at the Fisher Kingdom,” she said gently. Lowering her voice, she added, “I also think I agree with James about the, uh, former criminals. I really thought that man was going to attack you before, and I wouldn’t be able to use my magic quickly enough to do anything about it.”

He squeezed her hand. “Neither James nor Dean would h...

Re: Butterfly 46. Mission

Princess Rosslyn stepped into the palace chapel and looked around carefully.

Celeste said he called for me. Am I early?

No, there he was, seated in a darkened nook. He held a closed copy of The Beauty of Creation, the Goddess’s most sacred text, in his lap. His eyes were closed. There was a tired expression on his face, but he did not look sleepy—more preoccupied. The creases of worry on his face were visible from where Rosslyn stood, almost by the doorway. S...

Re: Butterfly 45. Awakening

Munch munch. Chomp chomp. Gobble gobble. Gulp.

Adon woke to find himself nom nom nomming on a hefty piece of vegetation. He only vaguely recognized the taste. Cucumber? He had never seen cucumbers growing in the garden before. But this didn’t feel like a memory.

As his vision came into focus, he saw Goldie standing above him, feeding one cucumber rind after another into his mouth like it was the opening to a wood chipper. Where the heck did Goldie get cucumber?...

Re: Butterfly 44. Food for a Friend

Rosslyn had passed a restless night, tossing and turning in her sleep, after her second encounter with Matilda.

She had found herself dreading dinner with her father all morning as well. He had been absent for last night’s dinner.

“He is away on state business,” Carolien had said. But she wore a severe expression that told Rosslyn that the Queen thought her stepdaughter was to blame for this “state business” coming up.

The King had returned this morning. Undoubtedl...

Ruthless V3Ch22-Underground

James turned and began walking toward the front doors.

“Well—hey, wait! Are-are you gonna do it or what?” Dean’s voice came through the air behind him.

I’m so profoundly disappointed in you, Dean. James didn’t bother answering the question. His answer would be obvious soon enough.

As he reached the door, James heard Alan’s voice. “Let me speak to him. The two of you are talking past each other. You could try to understand his point of view, you know?...

Re: Butterfly 43. Lost

Thank Goddess, we are saved!

That was Goldie’s first thought. But she also had no idea where the sparrow was flying. As she dangled beneath the bird by the slender muscle of the lizard’s tongue, she realized that it wasn’t going to be easy to free herself.

The spider had twisted her body as far as it would go, just to get a good view of what was happening above her. And she realized she couldn’t actually reach far back enough to try and rip herself free from the l...

Re: Butterfly 42. A Spider in the Wild

Goldie fed morsel after morsel of food into the black hole that was Adon’s mouth.

There were moments when she wanted to laugh. Her little friend had such a voracious appetite. Typical caterpillar!

And there were moments of terror, when she understood that the food she was giving Adon might be the difference between life and death. She wasn’t just thinking to herself when she commented on Adon’s appetite. She was trying to think loudly so that he might hear ...

41. Sick Day

Darkness and light cycled back and forth in Adon’s vision.

He had sunk into a diminished state of awareness, but he didn’t think the changes in levels of light were because days were passing. Despite his weakened sense of time, he was near certain that what was actually happening was his mind drifting in and out of consciousness.

When he was close to rising out of his stupor, the world seemed brighter. When the effects of the venom hit him harder, he sunk deeper into the darkn...