Chapter 4: For whom the bell TROLLS!

Chapter 4: For whom the bell TROLLS!

I woke up from my nap feeling utterly refreshed. Boy, I felt great!

And check it out: my scrap with that slime from yesterday had earned a brand-new skill! [Duplication]. With it, I could create, yep you guessed it, duplicates of myself! I guess this was how genderless monsters like slimes reproduced.

Now there could be more of me to go around! Thats pretty cool, right? Well, not quite.

My duplicates were only about half as powerful as I am. Which isnt a big deal. I didnt need progeny running around that were as dangerous as me. I wanted servants, not potential replacements!

No, the real problem is that my dupes werewellstupid.

They had about as much natural intelligence as a slime. They operated on pure animal instinct, and their actions were completely without logic. That meant they couldnt use the skills they inherited from me. They just ran around trying to chop up everything in sight!

My second issue with them was that they were uncontrollable! They wouldnt obey! It was so embarrassing! They made me feel like a young mother whose toddler was running wild in the supermarket! I could practically feel the judging eyes of the forest looking down on me.

Ugh, this is why Im glad I stayed single! thinks the owl.

Cmon Axe, control your kid! thinks the frog.

God, if youre going to take that brat outside, at least put a leash on him! thinks the squirrel.

You guys are so mean! You have no idea how hard it is being a single parent!

So, yeah, the dupes were useless. For now, anyway. Ill figure something out with them later. I always do!

Enough about them. Now was the time to focus on Operation Troll!

Were you worried Id forgotten about him? Dont be! I had sworn a sacred oath of vengeance! The troll had to pay for the awful thing hed done to me that I was very upset about. The details were a little hazy, sure, but I think I had the gist of it down. The troll was bad, and the troll had to go!

Oh, Morrison! Yeah, I was avenging Morrison, that was it. Are you wondering how I could have forgotten about Wilson? Err, Morrison? Well, Im the sort of person who likes to live in the moment. I really dont hold grudges over anything. Why be like that? Dont you think there are way too many people these days who nurse grievances? Thats not healthy!

In my opinion, life was too short to cling to anger. I say live and let die! And if you let someone die, go live somewhere else! Possibly under an assumed identity.

However, this wasnt about me. This was about Thompson! Hed been my brother, my pal, and my main means of transportation. Having him taken away was a real inconvenience that had to be answered for! The Troll had to die, plain and simple.

However, Mr. Slime had taught me the foolishness of blindly charging at my prey. I wouldnt make the same mistake with the troll. It was time to go old school on this guy!

Theres a saying Ive always liked: Information is power. And it sure was! Back on Earth, you couldnt just run around killing whenever you felt like it, no matter how bored you were. There were always consequences for the unprepared! Were there cameras nearby? Witnesses? Forensic evidence? That wouldnt be good! More importantly, could your target defend themselves? If so, how effectively?

The easiest way to gain this knowledge and eliminate any unnecessary risk, was to disguise yourself and shadow the person you were after. Learn everything about them that you could! Their movement patterns, their weaknesses, who their friends and loved ones were, that sort of stuff!

Once you had everything you needed, the next step was to use your knowledge to give your new friend a fun surprise when they least expected it!

Its called being an ambush predator. Its not fair. Life isnt fair! I heard that somewhere, once.

So, my first step was tracking down the troll, which wasnt difficult at all. He left big, heavy steps deeply impacted into the ground. Very easy to follow. I pulled myself along his trail by using my [Rooting] skill to grow tendrils that would drag my body along. I eventually came to a cavern, not unlike the one Johnson and I had visited days earlier that had housed that big rhyming spider.

No, it was more than similar! It was exactly like the other one. Interesting.

Obviously, I wasnt going inside. It was far too early to pick a fight. But knowing where my prey lived was an excellent start.

The stone flooring of the cavern would be too strong for my roots to penetrate but the mossy webbing clinging everywhere inside gave me an idea. I quietly sent thin tendrils to the roof of the cavern and began pushing them along, creating a network of vines across the cave ceiling. Then, I used my [Compound Vision] and combined it with my roots. Earlier, Id accidentally discovered that I could use my skills in combination with each other to trigger different results. Remember when I combined [Rooting] with [Solar Absorption] to keep Donnelley fed? Same principal!

By combining [Compound Vision] with [Rooting], I could see through the vines I was sending into the cave in flawless 360-degrees perfection. And by using them in conjunction with [Divine Eye], I could see through the darkness of the cave as though it were bright and sunny in there! It was a perfect surveillance system! Gosh, I wish I had something like this back on Earth.

Uh. For reasons.This chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.com

Very well! You were warned! Have at you!

Brognyr leapt across the cavern and brought his feet crashing down onto the axe, which didnt bother trying to avoid him, so frenzied were its actions. The side of its blade was now dented inwardly, and its handle was bent. Still, it came at him!

Die! Die-Die-Die-Die-Die-Die-Die-Die! Die!

Your tenacity is almost admirable, Axe! If only your frenzied ferocity could be directed towards a more noble purpose! Alas, it is not my place to correct the many wrongs which bedevil this poor world! Still, I can at least contribute towards a common good by seeing to your destruction!

Die! Die-Die-Die-Die-Die-Die-Die-Die! Die!

We shall see, Axe!

The axe tried chopping away at Brognyrs ankles, seeking a weak spot to sink its blade into. Foolish thing! There were no weaknesses on a fully grown forest trolls body! Try as it might, its blade would find no vulnerability to exploit!

Enough! Cried the troll, ready now to bring an end to this farce.

He lashed out with a powerful fist, a whistling roundhouse punch which smashed through the axe-head, penetrating it and leaving a massive hole in its center. The axe crumbled to its sides, flopping limply on the ground, now mortally wounded.

die...diedie, it said weakly.

Not today, friend, Brognyr replied as he brought his foot down on the axe and ended it.

His victory now complete, Brognyr threw back his head and roared his triumph to the world! Or rather, he roared it to the interior of his cavern, but there was no need for semantics. All that mattered was that the axe had been slain, and Brognyr had once more proven his superiority!

What a fool that axe had been! Didnt it know that achieving success in battle took more than reckless bravado? It should have at least tried to plan ahead! Ah, but regardless of whether or not it had a plan, the outcome would have been the same! For trolls truly were invincible

When had all those vines grown in?

Faster than Brognyr could blink, one of the vines snaked down from the ceiling and shot straight into his mouth, forcing itself into his throat, brutally closing off his airway. He couldnt breathe.

Laughter filled the cavern, reverberating throughout the place, filling Brognyrs ears with its cruel mockery. He managed to bite down on the vine and severe it, but it was still no use. He couldnt dislodge the clump in his throat. In desperation, he reached into his mouth, hoping to dislodge it with his fingers, but before he could even try, webbing began shooting onto him, an endless series of rapid-fire shots that hindered his movements and bound his limbs in place.

Ordinarily, Brognyr would have easily been able to rip through the stuff, but only if he could first take a breath. Air. He needed air! He needed to breathe! His vision began changing colors, first turning red, then purple, then slowly began fading to black.

Why? He wondered.

__

Hey, how about that? [Razor Web] did a great job of holding the troll in place. He didnt have enough oxygen left to fully contract his muscles, so he couldnt tear himself free. Gosh, I bet his head must have been swimming!

Hey, buddy! I said, after I crawled down from my perch on the cavern ceiling. Thanks for playing with my little duplicate! He was a rambunctious little tyke, wasnt he? Between you and me, I think he took after his mom. Im kidding! He didnt have a mother. Im an axe.

The troll tried to say something. I couldnt tell what. Probably something along the lines of Dont do this! Or Please let me go! Youd be amazed how often people repeated those little chestnuts when they realized they were about to croak. Or in this case: choke. Oh, well. Even if I wanted to save him, which I didnt, the goof had bitten through my vine. I couldnt do anything for him except watch him die. Which was pretty much all I wanted to do anyway, so that suited me just fine.

I sent my dupe in here because I wanted to know if I could cut you, I continued. Turns out, I couldnt! Woo! What a little lifesaver he turned out to be. And now hes gone. And well never know how he would have turned out! Honestly, Mr. Troll. Murdering a child. And right on the heels of eating my best friend, Higgens! Are there any depths to which you wont sink?

The trolls chest was now barely able to move. His frightened, yellowed eyes continued to bulge from their sockets. His body began shaking violently in an uncontrollable, spasmatic seizure.

For your crimes against Axe-kind, I now sentence you to be my experience points! Does the condemned have any final words? No? So be it.

After a few more minutes, pleasant for me, torturous for him, the trolls head drooped, then fell forward. He was dead.

Justice served, I declared. "This was for you, Morrigan! Rest easy, old friend."

I am a good person. I am a very good person.