Chương 375: (368) 5.64. Two Moves Ahead

The ranker king sat softly upon his throne, having just completed his hourly muscular exercise. The council of eleven had quickly come to understand his unyielding superiority over them, and it had been months since the last time any of his fellow rankers had dared to issue him a challenge, but he continued these exercises both out of habit, and as a continued attempt to improve himself.

"Excuse me… Mr. King," one of the non-warriors said, a human man sitting quietly by the side of his throne room. Like the other two strange humans who had appeared out of nowhere a few weeks back, they were entirely unbound, but they dared not move from the spot he had ordered them to stay. Not after he'd informed them point blank that he would view any attempt to leave that spot as a challenge and strike them down accordingly.

"You will refer to me as 'my king' or as 'ranker king,'" he said simply, closing his eyes and peering at the Thread of Ranks that connected all his people. As the one sitting at the pinnacle, he alone held the power to monitor and observe all his fellow rankers. He couldn't do anything as invasive as read their thoughts or see out of their eyes, but he could tell their precise location, and even pick up on their surface emotions if he focused hard enough.

They had lost a few patrolling ranker squads yesterday, and while he had ordered for the lost squads to be replaced and even doubled the patrols around the edge of his territory, the bodies had never been found and no confirmation as to what had befallen the rankers had been discovered. Which could only mean one thing. The Explorer had returned.

"In that case, my king," the human said, swallowing hard.

"It's already getting dark again, and spending the last night on the floor was a bit rough. Is there any chance we could go back to the rooms we were in before? When the weird cat-lady was poking at us and growling to herself all the time?"

"She was not growling. You lack the ability to understand her language," the ranker king said bluntly, frowning slightly as he focused on the soul of the second strongest ranker in their fractured kingdom. Just like how the man or woman sitting above all else gave up their name and became known as simply the ranker king, the council of eleven did something similar. The second ranker, the one closest to him in strength out of more than ten thousand warriors, had vanished from his senses again.

The spear-wielding man had some strange fascination with the cave that was larger on the inside than should be possible. The second ranker claimed he enjoyed fighting the flying monsters that were almost continuously spawned from the cave, but the ranker king had a hunch that was just an excuse to keep himself removed from the Thread of Ranks as much as possible.

"How is it that we can understand you then? My king!" the human added hastily, already having forgotten the simplest of rules.

"Joining the Thread of Ranks grants rankers the ability to communicate with others, regardless of language," he answered, continuing down the threads as he checked on the other members of the council of eleven. Seeing as they were the only members in the entire kingdom who could attack him without warning, he always made sure to keep a careful eye out for them. Thankfully, unlike the second ranker, the rest of the council were in their usual locations.

Overseeing the near-constant matches taking place between lesser rankers or focusing on their own training.

"If we could not understand our opponents, we would be unable to know when we were being issued a challenge."

"That sounds pretty useful," one of the other humans said, a woman with odd, large hoops of metal dangling from her ears that would be a liability in a fight.

"Can we join this thread, or whatever? Ranker king?"

"Joining the Thread of Ranks is not so simple an endeavor," he said, continuing to scan through the threads belonging to rankers patrolling the outskirts of his territory as he waited for another squad to vanish and give him the location of the Explorer prowling around his borders as he searched for an opening. The moment he had it, he would send an order through the thread, commanding all nearby squads to converge on the location.

Even if the Explorer was somehow capable of defeating a single squad at a time, the ranker king doubted he was strong enough to handle a few dozen high-level rankers attacking him all at once.

"So what would we have to do to join the thread?" the same human asked. The third continued to sit silently, not having said a word since being brought into the throne room the other day.

"Only warriors can join the thread," the ranker king said simply. He had already been informed that none of the three humans before him had selected combat classes. Not only that, but somehow, despite ranging in age from early twenties to late thirties, all of them still claimed to be at level 1. As if such an act wasn't potentially the most shameful thing he'd ever heard of. If it weren't for their rules of honor binding his hands, he would have cut them down where they stood just for that.

The ranker king's focus shifted slightly from the outskirts of his territory as he felt one of the threads in this very keep making a beeline straight for the throne room. Focusing on that soul a tad harder, he picked up such pitiful emotions as concern and fear. Sensations he hadn't personally felt since picking up his first sword as a young child. Opening his eyes, he stared at the door to the throne room and waited. Seconds later, a ranker burst in.

"My king!" she said, flinching back slightly as she realized he was already starting intensely at her, his sword held loosely and at the ready in one hand. It wasn't quite as remarkable a blade as the one he had lost in his attempt to stop the Explorer from escaping, but he was skilled enough to fell any opponent with even the rustiest blade. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Collecting herself, the ranker gave him a quick nod of respect, her pointed ears flopping slightly before she righted herself.

"I just received word from one of our Runners, a monster has appeared on the outskirts of the orc village! The sitting rankers you had stationed there have engaged it in combat, but the village has been set ablaze during the fighting! As we speak, Grunch is leading his people to seek refuge with the beastkin temporarily!"

"The monster. Describe it to me," he ordered, wondering if this was simply an ill-timed attack or the Explorer playing his hand. They had been attacked by elite monsters in the past, so it wasn't out of the question.

"It is a hulking golem of wood and vines," she said, reading from a missive the Runner must have given her.

"It stands twice the height of any ranker, and hits harder than any monster we've fought thus far. Not only that, but it fires out poisonous quills and can control the very grass around itself!"

"It certainly sounds like a powerful monster," the ranker king stated, not moving so much as a muscle as he thought.

"Yet I haven't detected any deaths among the souls of the rankers I have stationed within the orc's settlement."

"You haven't?" the ranker asked, blinking in shock as she scanned through the Runner's missive once more.

"It clearly says here that many of the rankers were taken out by poisoned quills. It's taking everything the others have just to stand against the monster." Closing his eyes once more, the ranker king focused on the threads leading off toward the orc settlement. Sure enough, he quickly picked up on almost three dozen souls with fluctuating emotions, ranging between excitement and fear, indicating they had to be locked in battle.

And beside them, were a good sixteen rankers who, judging by the calm, soothing sensation from their souls, were fast asleep.

"No monster would put people to sleep when it could simply kill them instead," he said, his eyes snapping open. If the rankers had been killed, he would have felt it while analyzing the Thread of Ranks. There was only one reason why the rankers would have been knocked unconscious. Somehow, the Explorer had learned how the Thread of Ranks worked. He'd been trying to do something with the orcs without catching his attention.

And seeing as the Explorer was the only person in the entire kingdom with the knowledge and experience of traversing this new world they found themselves trapped within, the ranker king didn't have to spend long wondering what his intentions were.

"The Explorer is here, and he's trying to help our conquered foes escape," he said, resisting the urge to get to his feet and rush out to join the battle himself. As the ranker king, he had far more efficient methods of fighting than running blindly around in search of his opponent. Focusing on the Thread of Ranks once more, he sent a simple order to all the surrounding squads patrolling the borders, redirecting them to converge on the midway point between the orc settlement and the beastkin village.

If the orcs were making a move, he had to assume the beastkin were as well. The Explorer must have planned to gather them all together before somehow leading them out through one of the adjacent fragments.

"The Explorer?" the metal-hoop woman asked from across the room, sounding curious.

"Who is that? Ranker king?" Ignoring her, he opened his eyes and stared at the ranker who had delivered the news to him.

"Double the number of rankers I currently have watching the skies around the keep. He might come from above us."

"Yes, my king," she nodded, before rushing off to carry out his orders.

"Is everything alright?" the twitchy man asked nervously.

"We're not in any danger, are we?"

"If a man appears within this room and any of you touch him, I will kill all three of you without hesitation," he informed his prisoners, earning gasps and pale faces in response. Satisfied, he closed his eyes, focusing on the Thread of Ranks yet again. It was draining doing this so many times in quick succession, but he had to keep his finger on the pulse of his people.

Knowing the Explorer was helping the orcs and beastkin attempt to escape their borders, he wanted nothing more than to rush out there himself and attempt to strike the man down, but that would be reckless. The Explorer was patient. Cunning. Content with spending days within their dungeon as he waited for the perfect moment to make his escape. There was a chance this entire thing was just a diversion for him to break into the keep and rescue the people he'd originally come all this way to find.

The ranker king followed the scattered threads of his various squads as they all converged on the mid-point between the orc and beastkin settlements. He wasn't able to send more complicated orders than instructions of where to go, but that was fine. Calling a few hundred rankers to converge on a single location was a pretty straightforward message understood across his people. Defeat and subdue. Waiting for the familiar emotions of blood-lust and excitement, he watched as the first of the squads finally arrived.

He didn't know exactly where the fleeing orcs were, but there were roughly two thousand of them. The rankers should be able to at least see them and alter their courses to intersect. Instead, squad after squad reached the exact point he'd directed them toward, and he began getting an emotion from the gathering of souls that was distinctly not one associated with battle. Confusion. With his eyes shut, he could practically envision the distant scene before him.

Squads of elite rankers running up to the others already waiting there, looking around for any sort of threat or enemy, only to find nothing but fellow rankers doing the exact same. It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened. His frown deepening, the ranker king's eyes snapped open once again, and he took a long, deep breath as his grip tightened around the hilt of his sword. He'd been played. The orcs hadn't headed directly for the beastkin village as he'd suspected. But if that was the case… Where were they?