Sara Garcia, a sixth realm [Knight] tried to walk through the barracks without tripping. It didn’t help that everyone was staring at her–and whispering behind her back. It wasn’t like she could stop and beat the ever living shit out of them either.

  She was a Destined, and a woman. The army in The Realm were mostly men, it couldn’t be helped.

  After all, The Realm was a hell where you could die at any time, and they had a war to win.

  The communists were gaining more ground than they should have. After the disaster that was the Tenth Realm expansion, they had taken over two of the System Portals and had isolated all of the known Third realm Trial entrances.

  Or at least that’s what the intel said. Sara pursed her lips, communication lines had been getting worse as of late.

  A man stepped out of the way for her, he saluted like he should.

  “Captain Garcia!”

  “At ease, Private.”

  Some of the other bastards chuckled at the display. She didn’t let it get to her. Sara knew the score, she’d been made into a poster girl so they could get more Destined women to reveal themselves and join the army. She wondered when this Private would start to act like the others as well, it always happened.

  It was said that the Manager had been favoring women in recent years. That the Manager was getting ‘favors’ for it. The reason being? The few women that did pick physical classes often ended up being stronger than the average Trialist. Some of them even believed the Manager was giving out better skills for those ‘favors.

  Sara didn’t believe it. A woman had to be tougher to survive in The Realm. That was simply a fact. It wasn’t a wonder they’d get higher achievement scores considering some of the shit they had to go through.

  She was the prime example. She was one of the strongest soldiers in the sixth realm, a fact that a lot of the idiots didn’t believe.

  Sara entered her squad’s quarters and relaxed. A cosy wooden cabin, a luxury that only those with higher ranks received. The town they had liberated–

  –

  “Sorry liberated?”

  Ryan interrupted storytime with a question. Seffara didn’t miss a beat, she put a hand on her breastplate. A mock patriotic pride.

  “We were there to stop the influence of communism. I’m sure you know how it went.”

  “The violating and the pillaging?”

  He still remembered old Jecharim’s comments when he had taken the old man hostage.

  “Not how I’d put it, but sure. It wasn’t as bad as some of the Realmers will tell you, but what did happen was plenty bad enough.”

  “Can’t imagine you putting up with that.”

  Seffara went silent, she wasn’t drinking for once. She continued to stare into the crackling bonfire. Her silence spoke more volumes than anything else.

  “Well, I wasn’t always Seffara the Sapphire. Now shut up, I don’t talk about this time for a good reason. Let’s not make this longer than necessary.”

  –

  “Sara! You’re back! How’s the scouting go with the runts?”

  A dashing blonde elf stood up as he smiled widely. He was still covered in sleek camouflage paint as he hugged her. This slimy [Rogue] was one of the few men she truly respected.

  “Hey Mark, the same as usual. Runts acting like they’re invincible and I have to figure out how to get it out of their system without risking their lives.”

  “Ah I remember being a realm one idiot too. You know how it is Sara, give them time.”

  “Sure, then maybe they’ll turn into the other assholes. The ones that DEFINITELY KNOW I CAN HEAR THEM!”

  She yelled through her walls, shouting at a particular group of people that were snickering at a joke they had whispered a few seconds ago. It wouldn’t make them care enough to change.

  It was one of the things she wasn’t prepared for, being a sixth realm meant that you could hear far, far too well.

  Mark looked uncomfortable at that. He had [Enhanced Senses] and could probably hear even more than she did. She was sure that if the things she heard were the stuff they’d say close to her, then it’d be much worse behind closed tents. Mark tried to change the subject.

  “You know how it is, can’t stop men from talking like boys. Not when death is around every corner.”

  Sara sighed, “yeah.”

  The blonde elf broke the awkward silence with an encouraging smile.

  “You know, I heard about an interesting fella, maybe you’d like him. I was thinking about recruiting him for our squad.”

  “Oh? Been shopping around for people without your captain huh?”

  Mark grinned at her little jab. While Sara was technically a higher rank at Captain, Mark had actually earned his. Plus he was just better with people than she was.

  “An orc named Barry, seems real interesting, a [Chieftain] class apparently.”

  –

  Ryan interrupted again.

  “Wait, isn’t Barry a [Berserker]?”

  Seffara chuckled.

  “That’s a little trick he used. Back then the [Chieftain] class was seen as a support class. They’d target him thinking he was a crucial support then they’d end up facing a [Berserker] instead. It took us a year to figure out his actual class.”

  “Damn, sneaky orc.”

  –

  Sara thought about the class, [Chieftain] was a rare class that their American Pioneer had. The class was far too rare to figure out if it would fit into their squad.

  The name Barry did ring a bell though.

  “Wait, I’ve heard of him. He’s been around multiple squads and people think he’s unstable. Even the brass seems to have stopped trying to pair him with the others.”

  From what she knew, the orc had been demoted to Private and was treated as such. Sara remembered this particular story because a sixth realm still being Private was pretty damned stupid.

  “Ah, but that’s the thing,” Mark tapped his pointy ears, “From what I’ve gathered, he’s always fighting with his own squads over things he didn’t let them do.” Mark let the implication settle. “And from what I heard, he didn’t abandon his last squad. He was the one that fought till the end and completed his Trial. Solo.”

  Sara blinked.

  “Huh, that’s good enough for me. Go recruit him. I’ll deal with the brass.” Sara rubbed at her forehead, “We really need a different system for the higher realms. I don’t like that he’s going to be a Private in our Trial squad.”

  Mark just shrugged. “It is how it is. Can’t really change it.”

  “Guess not.”

  The blond elf gave her a brilliant roguish smile.

  “Actually, would you like to help me recruit the guy?”

  “Me?”

  “He seems like a good fella, just a little stubborn. You know, just be there, smile and look pretty. He’s an orc, I’m sure it’ll work.”

  –

  Ryan made a face.

  “Don’t say anything. Mark was a good man, it was just a different time.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You just did. Now shut up.”

  –

  The sixth realm Private was scrubbing away at the latrines of a Sector Seven base. It was the only real base in the higher sectors with actual standing buildings. There’d been many attempts at establishing a permanent outpost on Sector Eight but each and every time it would be taken down by sabotage.

  Sabotage or monsters, it was hard to tell which was which sometimes.

  She didn’t even know why they kept trying. It was a waste of resources, and the monsters were just too dangerous. They already had their hands full with the occasional Sector Ten monsters that crossed into the other sectors.

  Yet the costs didn’t seem to matter. Every country wanted a base on Sector Eight.

  That wasn’t even mentioning how bad the competing squads from the other countries were. Even now, despite how much destruction that dragon had caused, the war over the fifth Trial entrances were deadlier than ever.

  She shuddered.

  Sara's five man squad had lost two members simply reaching the fifth Trial entrance. Both of them had been realmbound, and she hadn’t had any time to grieve. Pretty much everyone she’d started off with had died. Permanently.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  There was no backing out of The Realm just because you lost your safety life. Each System portal on Earth only allowed one attempt a day. Each Trialist slot was far too precious to waste.

  The orc Private turned around as he heard the footsteps. He saluted, a little too slow for a superhuman of their level.

  “Captain.”

  “That was slow, Private.”

  The orc just shrugged at her. Captain Sara glared up at the massive orc, instantly disliking him. Men who picked orcs as a species weren’t always the worst, they just often were. People liked to talk about how it was innate to orc physiology, that they were aggressive and angry.

  Sara believed otherwise. That the meanest and nastiest people picked the strongest looking species to change into.

  She knew how to deal with people like this, she stamped her foot as–

  Mark interjected before Sara could give the orc a dressing down.

  “Chill, chill. Let’s drop the formalities Captain. Private Barry, we have an offer for you.”

  “I’m listening, sir.”

  It should have been a ‘sir, yes sir!’ but she let it slide. For Mark’s sake.

  “We want you to join our Trial squad as a recruit member. We’re planning on going further.”

  The orc Private crossed his arms, not looking tempted by the offer.

  “Seems like a dumb move considering the rumors surrounding me.”

  “Well, let’s just say I have good hearing. I think you’d be a good fit for our team.”

  “If you’re looking for a meat shield then the answer is no. Sir.”

  Mark was trying to recruit someone like this? Their four man squad was one of the best in the sixth realm. They had even managed to fight off a squad with seventh realm trialists. A private who was stuck cleaning latrines should have been jumping at the opportunity to join them.

  Sara had enough.

  “I’m a Captain and Mark’s a Lieutenant, we outrank you. You should be jumping when we say so, Private.”

  The orc was unmoved. He loomed over her.

  “Funny, because I remember someone trying to use rank to tell me to look away when a higher up tried to hold down a native. Rank didn’t stop me from breaking their bones. Do you want to try?”

  Sara blinked first, she was processing what the orc had just said as Mark laughed first.

  “Hahaha! I told you he’d be a great fit,” the [Advanced Scout] then drew an arm around the orc’s broad shoulder, unafraid of the looming aura. “Look, Barry, we don’t want to pull rank to make you join our team. We want you to want to join us. Why don’t you try working with us on a few simple missions and see if you want to join our team, sound fair?”

  Barry blinked, a bit thrown off by Mark’s effortless skill at defusing a situation. He looked at both the recruiters and made a quick decision.

  “Huh, sounds good.”

  The lieutenant and Captain let the Private continue to clean the latrines. When they were far away Sara shook her head.

  “I don’t like him, Mark. He’s a loose cannon.”

  Mark didn’t miss a beat, “That makes me feel better. After all, you didn’t like me at first either.”

  Sara scoffed then punched her friend in the arm. “I guess we’ll see then.”

  –

  Large footsteps interrupted the storytime from behind. Ryan looked back to see Barry already far closer than he should have been. He really was a sneaky orc.

  “You never were good at judging people.”

  Barry walked to the three huddled around the large bonfire. Seffara scoffed at her old friend.

  “I might still not be wrong.”

  The orc looked down at Ryan.

  “Same.”

  Ryan just narrowed his eyes.

  “I’m just going to assume that’s an insult and say fuck you too, Barry.”

  –

  Two years after Barry had joined Sara’s team.

  “Captain Garcia, you need to get that orc under control.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “This is the third squad he’s assaulted this year. There are enough people demanding he get a dishonorable discharge that the list would go down to my nuts.”

  “He will be reprimanded sir.”

  “He needs more than a reprimand.”

  “Sir, yes sir!”

  “You’re not listening to me at all are you, Captain?”

  “Sir, No sir!”

  “Get the fuck out of my quarters.”

  “Sir, yes sir!”

  Sara turned around and smirked as she walked out. The Major knew the score, Barry was one of the strongest Trialists in the army. There were a few other monstrous ones out there, but they worked solo and were even more difficult to control.

  Even if they weren’t quite the strongest, her squad had proven themselves to be the most reliable by far.

  The Captain loudly marched through the compound in the first sector. Everyone moved out of the way and didn’t dare meet her eyes. Very few dared to talk behind her back these days.

  The Sapphire Bitch with a feral watchdog was what a few had started to call her.

  Not that anyone did even that anymore.

  Not after Barry started sneaking in and breaking their bones.

  Surveillance was made stiffer after the third squad he’d roughed up.

  The funny thing was, it still didn’t stop her watchdog. All they found was a recording of an unrepentant green orc beating the ever living shit out of army members as they confessed their sins. The brass had even tried to remove Barry from their team. It had almost gone through too.

  Until Mark told her to ask them a simple question.

  How were they planning on containing Barry?

  How did you contain an eighth realm trialist that could go toe to toe with most ninth realms? Nobody had managed to develop a guaranteed way to restrain such powerful superhumans, and they knew his combat capabilities. They knew there’d be nothing that could keep Barry locked in a cell.

  The question had somewhat backfired. The brass started sending them into suicide missions instead.

  When they’d kept surviving and succeeding? The suicide missions stopped. At least the ones without backup. The brass had changed their attitude.

  Her squad was far too useful now.

  Not even the ninth realm squads came close in terms of operational excellence.

  As for the tenth realm? Only one team other than the Pioneers had achieved it. The monsters of Sector Ten had completely destabilized the line and made traversing Sector Nine a nightmare. Every entrance outside of a leveled zone was guarded by a Pioneer.

  And if you somehow defeated the dragon in the tenth Trial?

  One Russian squad had managed to do it, at least that’s what the rumors said. That squad then immediately got hunted down by the Pioneers in Sector Ten.

  Nobody else had bothered attempting it since.

  At least, nobody had admitted that they had succeeded.

  That was the current status in The Realm. Apparently the brass was attempting to negotiate with the Pioneers. Mark had heard some concerning rumors that a full operation on the tenth Trial would happen soon.

  It was insane. None of their squads were up to challenging a dragon. The one that had appeared with the tenth realm expansion had taken all of their squads to beat back. She shuddered, remembering how many lives they’d lost just to repel that monster.

  Ninth realm or not. Anyone that thought they could fight a dragon was insane.

  Sara stepped into her squad’s quarters. Barry was sitting by the fireplace with his eyes closed, meditating. Sara stepped behind him and swung a fist at his head. The blow would have shattered most men’s skulls.

  The orc barely moved. His breathing stayed the same as he spoke.

  “What was that for?”

  “A reprimand.”

  Barry snorted and Seffara chuckled. She collapsed into a chair as she looked up at the wooden rafters.

  “Man, I wish I did this from the start.”

  “Hit me in the head?”

  “That too. But no, wished I’d said fuck rank and started stopping all the idiots earlier.”

  Barry hummed. “They never would have let you rise up the realms if you did.”

  “Hah! Well they can’t do anything about that anymore.” Seffara then lowered her voice to a whisper. “You were right about this stupid war. The whole ideology thing was just an excuse.”

  Barry opened an eye, “There’s probably listeners, more people are taking sensory skills these days.”

  “Fuck em. What are they going to do? Demote their poster girl for what’s being said in the streets? They’ve already held off on my promotion anyway,” she wanted to spit, but held off “Besides where are they going to get a better team? All our ninth realm squads are a mess. We’re already better than all of them. What happens when we hit the ninth realm, Barry? All those missions they sent us on… It won’t even be close. Only the Pioneers will be stronger than us.”

  “The brass isn’t going to let me go higher.” Barry stated.

  What if we just go for it anyway?

  Sara left that unsaid. Barry didn’t need her to say it out loud.

  “When was the last time a classed up trialist was kicked out of The Realm?”

  The orc just hummed louder. Sara kept venting, trying to convince both him and herself.

  “That tenth realm expansion was so bad that we still haven’t recovered. Those Sector Ten monsters keep popping up randomly and fucking everything up… I think we need to get stronger if we’re going to survive the next expansion.”

  “Probably, but–”

  Barry cut himself off as he jumped up. Seffara instinctively leapt forwards from her couch. She summoned a blade that shone with blue gemstones. Barry’s expression was grave, she’d only seen it three times before.

  “[Deadly Premonition], get ready, ETA 15.”

  That was a damned Epic skill. It gave the user a heads up, along with various, often unreliable warnings.

  “The Chinese? A wandering monster? A Russian hitsquad?”

  All of them were unlikely. The Chinese were still recovering, the same as they were. A wandering monster was unlikely with all the scouts around. A Russian hitsquad was possible. They had some crazy ninth realms but even they wouldn’t be mad enough to assault a base like this.

  “I don’t know, I think it’s a monster. Yes, it’s one, small but deadly. It’s bad, we should evacuate.”

  She didn’t need more prompting. Sara took out a walkie and got the right frequency.

  “Start The Realm WARN, Epic class premonition warning. One monster. Over.”

  The low warning alarm blasted out almost immediately. She could hear everyone outside reacting immediately.

  “I said we should sound the evacuation alarm, Sara. This is bad.”

  “Your skill’s been wrong as much as it’s been right. If I start an evacuation with just this and nothing happens, we’re actually going to get screwed. If the Chinese are triggering your skill to take over the system portal we’re going to get fucked.”

  Mark burst into the room.

  “The hell’s going on?”

  “Barry’s skill. Single monster, he says it’s bad.”

  “Fuck, alright. We readied up?”

  –

  A singular orc walked towards the fortress. The walls were made of reinforced concrete and enchanted stone, he appeared without his weapons drawn. The floodlights immediately focused on him as low sirens started to blare.

  “Sighting! Halt! Identify yourself!”

  “Hello, it’s me.”

  “Oh shit, it’s Pioneer Paul! Guys, he probably triggered the alarm! False alarm!”

  He waved at the Pioneer, “Hey Paul! How’s it going?”

  “Not good Jacob.”

  “Hey guys, false alarm! Tell them our Pioneer dropped by!”

  Jacob dropped down from the reinforced walls as he went to give the friendly orc a handshake and a hug. The brass had always said to try to be friendly with their Pioneer and Pioneer Paul made that easy.

  The orc was like a big teddy bear once you got to know him.

  The teddy bear held up a hand to stop Jacob.

  “You should leave the base, Jacob.”

  “What do you mean? The alarm? Don’t worry about it, probably someone on a hair trigger, you know how it is.”

  “No, go far. Far away from here. I can’t promise you’ll be safe.”

  “What do you mean? This is Sector One, I’m an eighth realm. Come on Paul, you know that.”

  Jacob heard a shout from the base, he looked back to see a giant green orc leap over the walls and charge at the two of them.

  Both Jacob and Paul recognized Barry. The orc was screaming in a frenzy as he charged at them.

  “Jacob! Get away from him! Restart the alarm! BLACK ALERT, EVACUATE!”

  “I am sorry Jacob.”

  That was the last thing Jacob heard before he was tossed into the sky, far, far away from the base. The world seemed to shake as the sky itself started rippling before his eyes.

  It wasn’t quite a Legend, but the strongest Epic in history. An Epic that had redefined the [Chieftain] class and was said to be able to go toe to toe against Legends.

  The Epic that put the Chieftain Tyrant above all others. Even now.

  “[The Might Of My Tribe]”

  https://www.patreon.com/Purveilor