SWNOVELS Chapter 1: Kazz
It was the 23rd of Jinn, in the 10th Celestial Era, and the year was 1123. The whole of Othania shook with the roaring thunder that fateful day. It was so strong that it made the ground quake beneath us. This was the day my grandfather sacrificed his life to help end the war, and I remember it like it was only yesterday. Twenty-four years ago, Othania faced a Mana crisis. With most magitech items relying on Mana crystals, the shortage of them led to a civil war. Millions died, and even though the war is over, minor conflicts still erupt constantly. Thankfully, King Aaron has brought some stability to the nation, though Othania is still not fully healed.
Fourteen years later, I inherited my grandfather’s blacksmith shop, the only one in town. With battles raging all around, business has never been better, and people constantly need weapons and repairs. Despite this, all my life, I felt like I was forgetting something, something important. I didn't pay much attention, not that I ever got the chance.
One day, when the shop was empty, I stumbled upon a strange necklace amongst my grandfather’s old creations. It had a peculiar gilded pyramid adorned with black gems, and it had some indecipherable, scratched writing on it.
All I could make out was, “K...l...dr...th.”
“What the hell is this?” I wondered aloud as I examined the mysterious artifact. “There is no way my grandfather made it,” I thought to myself. As I put the necklace around my neck, the gems started glowing a crimson hue, and I felt a burning sensation. I swiftly took it off to inspect it more closely and to stop my neck from burning. I reached for my Arcane Focus to identify its magical properties, but before I could, I saw a cloaked man come up to me. "Hello sir, is there anything I can do for you?" I asked him.
"Tell me, how did you get that?" He said to me, curious about the necklace on my anvil.
"Why do you ask?" I asked him as I picked it up.
"That's not important. I have to take a closer look!" He said as he grabbed the artifact from my hands. "Yes, this is what I've been searching for!"
“Hey! Give that back!”
"I'm sorry, but I don't think I can do that. Farewell!" He said as he ran off.
"Come back! Hey! Stop it, thief!" I yelled as I chased after him. As I followed him, I ran into a guard who asked me where I was going. “Someone stole an artifact from me, and I’m trying to get it back. He went that way!” I said, pointing east of where we were.
“Do you need help?” Asked the guard.
“Yeah, that would be nice! By the way, what’s your name?” I asked him.
“Drakel Han. And you are?” He replied.
“I’m Kazzura Nahvra. Call me Kazz, please.”
Drakel blew a horn, and all of a sudden, a direwolf came running towards him. “Well Kazz, have you ever been on a direwolf?” He asked me.
“What?! You can tame those creatures?” I exclaimed in amazement.
“Of course, you can! Isn’t she amazing?” He replied, patting her head.
“What’s her name?” I asked Drakel, to which he responded that her name was Nora. After I got on the saddle with Drakel, he signaled Nora to start moving.
Nora was a beautiful silver wolf with smooth fur and vibrant eyes that seemed to glow during the night. She was also quite fast. I could feel the wind rushing past me and Drakel. He seemed to notice that I was enjoying the ride quite a bit!
After a while of traveling on wolf-back, we noticed the thief running with the artifact in hand! The man was wielding a crossbow as well. He then noticed us and turned around, shooting at Drakel and Nora. I hastily pushed Drakel out of the way so he wouldn’t get shot. After I pushed him, both Drakel and I fell down. As we got up, we both noticed that the man got away again! Nora ended up getting wounded, so we decided to walk next to her by foot.
After what felt like forever, we finally got out of the forest and ended up on the other side of the kingdom. Drakel caught a glimpse of the man slipping into the town hall, and we both ran inside. We found out that the king was performing a speech. “What is he doing?” Drakel said, referring to the thief. “I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling about this,” I replied to him quietly. We both noticed a 3-foot-tall statue strapped to his back as well. None of us knew what it was, but it looked like some sort of creature.
“Well, brother, after everything I did, you thought you could just get rid of me!?” The man said to the king as he walked onto the stage. “Tarquin, it’s you! Why and how have you come here!?” The king responded. “I want revenge. You thought you could just pretend like I was never a part of the story? Well, you were wrong. I am sorry that I have to do this, brother,” the thief, or Tarquin, said to the King and everyone else.
He then placed the pyramid in the triangle hole in the statue. The artifact began to glow, and the statue shattered, sending rock shards flying. A vortex then appeared, and a huge creature slowly emerged, destroying the building and killing all in its path. “What are you thinking! We are all going to die!” Drakel and I both yelled at Tarquin. “That’s what I was planning, you fools! Only I can control the Koldryth Beast!” He said to us, pointing at the creature.
The creature then broke out of the building and started to destroy the kingdom. Tarquin commanded the creature to attack the king. The beast, however, did not listen. It was just randomly consuming large structures and trees. The creature kept growing larger and larger the more it consumed. The flying creature then picked up a random person to eat. Drakel, however, grabbed one of its tentacles and pulled the woman out of the beast’s hands. All three of them then ran away from the monster along with hundreds of other people.
The woman that Drakel had saved thanked him. She told us that her name was Hanako Mitsune. All three of us sat down for a while thinking about what to do. Drakel decided that we should build a temporary base of operations in a cave. Luckily there was a small hole in one of the larger hills. We decided to rest there for the night. When we woke up, the beast was much larger and had moved farther too.
“Hanako, do you have any ideas?” I asked her desperately. “Not really. I guess we could get some weapons. It will be a bit dangerous though. The beast is still out there, and we could get killed at any second.” She answered.
“While you're right about the danger, it isn’t a bad idea. Let’s go.” I
told the girl. She then replied with a simple “Alright,” and we ran to the kingdom. We first went to my shop and grabbed some weapons. Drakel’s sword was broken, so he grabbed a new longsword. Hanako grabbed two daggers, and I grabbed two short swords.
We now had better weaponry, however, a small black creature then attacked us. We quickly killed it, however, realized that it was related to the creature that Tarquin unleashed. “This beast, it’s birthing these smaller creatures!” Hanako said in shock. “This is bad. Not only do we have a giant, tentacled monster trying to kill us, but now we have small tentacled creatures attacking us too!” Drakel added.
We all decided to try and help any survivors. We found a few and told them to run as far away as possible. A few of them hesitated, but after thinking about it, most agreed.
“Drakel, Hanako, we need to kill that thing. I just can’t think of how.” I told the others. “How about not dying!” Hanako yelled as she pushed me and Drakel out of the way. “There is a swarm of them!?” Me and the others started attacking the creatures. They attacked Hanako, however, it wasn’t too deep as she quickly backed away before it dug into her skin.
Luckily, we soon killed them all off, which was not an easy task by any stretch. We fortunately weren’t harmed too bad. What made it so difficult was just the sheer quantity.
We decided that if we were to defeat the Koldryth Beast, we would need to train hard. Only Drakel has actually fought creatures like this. He, however, is not a very good teacher, so we quickly decided to find an actual teacher.
By this time, we had no clue what to do. We couldn’t find a teacher, we weren’t strong enough, and we had no clue how powerful the creature is.
“That creature was supposed to obey me! I worked so hard on that damn ritual!” A faraway voice yelled. The voice sounded similar to Tarquin’s voice. Hanako decided that we should quickly hide and listen in on him. Despite me wanting to punch the idiot in the face, I kept my cool and went along with her plan.
While hiding, we accidentally knocked down one of the mugs. We were hiding behind a bar table. As the mug hit the floor, Tarquin noticed that someone was hiding. “Who is there!?” He said while he looked around. After a few seconds, he noticed the mug and found us. “What are you three doing!” He yelled at us. “First of all, this!” I said right before I punched him right in the face. “What the hell was that!” He shouted as he wiped the blood from his face. “Second of all, why the fuck did you unleash that monster!” I pinned him down and interrogated him.
“That’s none of your goddamn business.”
“Oh, it is, especially if you want to keep your life. So, what will it be?”
Tarquin then kicked me square in the stomach and pulled out a dagger. “Whose life is on the line now?” He yelled at me as he put the knife to my neck. He started to slowly push the knife deeper, cutting my skin. Drakel, however, pushed the man away from me.
“Bad idea, Tarquin!” Drakel then threw the man onto the ground. “You fucked up, Tarquin. First you steal from her, then you unleash a being more powerful than anything we have ever seen, and now you try to kill us.” Drakel started to choke the man, however, let go. Even after everything, Drakel did not want to kill him.
“You are really lucky that I didn’t kill you right now. That doesn’t mean you're free, though. Hanako, give me a rope. “What the h-” Right before he could finish, Drakel knocked him out. He then tied Tarquin to a pillar. After a few minutes, Tarquin woke up.
“You bastard.” Tarquin muttered. “So, now will you tell us, why did you summon that creature. “That damned beast was supposed to obey me. For years I studied that ritual.” He said to us. “Quit dodging the question!” I told him sternly. “I unleashed the Koldryth to destroy this bloody kingdom. I did not expect this.” He said to us.
He definitely got part of his wish! The kingdom is being destroyed. “You said something about revenge. What was it?” Drakel asked the man.
“If you want me to tell you that, you have to untie me.”
“Fine, have it your way!” Drakel reluctantly untied Tarquin.
“Finally. I hate having to give you a history lesson, but here we are. Fifteen years ago, after the mana war ended, a new king took over. That man being King Aaron, my younger brother. We both helped end the war despite our tactics being completely different. He believed that the kingdom needed to join back together. I, however, believed that we needed to defeat our enemy. He thought it was immoral and wrong as they were ‘our people.’ It was both of our tactics, however, that ended the war.
But I found out that he was hoarding thousands of these crystals for himself. When I confronted them, he told me that if I kept quiet, I would be the caretaker of Othania’s biggest secret, the Koldryth Keep. Many ancient relics and treasures were hidden there. What I did not know was that he erased me from all of our legends. Every single contribution was written as his. I was forgotten. As well as that, I was cursed to stay in that temple for years.
Finally, after a decade, I found a way to break the curse. From there, I spent almost a year on this ritual. It was intended to destroy the king and what he rebuilt. I thought I could control the Koldryth Beast, but I was very wrong.”