Fallen apostle, p.1
Fallen Apostle, page 1
Fallen Apostle
Volume One: Leonidas
DD Spec
Copyright © 2022 by D.D. Spec
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Contents
1. Humiliation
2. What Was The Use?
3. The Worth of a Life
4. Head Clergyman
5. Cleaning
6. Bottom Feeder
7. Heat
8. The Races and Synergy of Bloodlines
9. Thank You
10. No One Dares to Touch. No One Dares to Say.
11. Beginning of a Mission
12. Berserk
13. Cruelty
14. Low-Tier
15. Mage Class
16. A Name
17. House Lady
18. Maddening Thought
19. Welcome
20. Mountaintop
21. Failure of a Knight
22. Blessed Beast
23. Victory or Defeat
24. He’s a Mage
25. Held High
26. Scapegoat
27. To Be Embroiled
Humiliation
BANG!
A body flew out from a window, crashing into the crowded street.
The shards of glass drizzled downward like the last spurt of a heavy rain, sparkling like a fine mist. Leonidas, though, felt that it was more akin to a final pinch of piss, the kind a man would have to ease out with a squeeze of his fingers and a flick of his wrist.
Something like seeing the beauty in an unfortunate event wasn’t like Leonidas at all, especially when it was he who had been flung through the window to begin with. It only made it worse that he felt some of these shards of glass tear into the skin of his back.
Leonidas coughed, glittering blood that seemed to be just a tad too violet coming from his lips.
As he stood, his chest heaved, a toothy sneer revealing a row of glistening teeth. It was immediately obvious that Leonidas’ canines were far too prominent for a normal human. It only made it worse that droplets of blood, clearly a brighter red than his own, dripped down from them and onto his lips.
Disgusted by this foreign blood, Leonidas used his ragged sleeve to wipe it away, taking his own coughed-up blood with it. He struggled to his feet, ignoring the stares of the passersby.
The storefront Leonidas had just been kicked out of rumbled, a hulking man barreling forth from it.
“Leonidas! I’ll rip you limb from limb and hang your corpse out to be eaten by the summer birds!”
The crowd turned their gazes toward the hulking man before their expressions became somewhat weird.
In one hand, the hulking man held up his pants. Unfortunately, he didn’t do a very good job, revealing a clear line of sight to his hairy upper thigh and ass.
In the other hand, he held his belt, seemingly with every intention of using it as a weapon. His eyes were lit with fury as he charged after Leonidas, but suddenly sensing the presence of the crowd, he froze.
The crowd looked from Leonidas’ bloody smile, to the hulking man’s sagging pants, back to Leonidas’ blood-trickling lips, and then to the hulking man’s belt. With each pass, their expressions became weirder and weirder.
The hulking man’s face turned a deep shade of red, then violet, then it became an unhealthy blue as he completely forgot to breathe. He was furious, but he suddenly had nowhere to vent.
Leonidas finally stood all the way to his feet, spitting harshly at the ground.
“Fuck you.”
These were all the words he managed to say. Even considering how ridiculous the hulking man looked, they still sounded somewhat weak.
Leonidas’ voice was two octaves too low for the shape of his body. It was like the rumbling of his vocal cords might rip his skinny frame apart at any moment if he said anymore. But, he still managed to stand, his two piercing red eyes wanting for murder.
The hulking man took several deep breaths. He already realized that it was too late to do anything. If he didn’t realize that Leonidas had goaded him into kicking him so far away, even at the expense of such a heavy injury, he would be even more foolish than he looked.
It only took a moment before the hulking man’s frozen expression turned into a sneer. Leonidas’ words might have sounded brave and like a final act of defiance to someone who didn’t understand the situation. But, to the hulking man, it was no different from a weak retaliation by someone with no more power than an ant by the roadside.
The hulking man began to laugh.
“Your squire position? Consider it revoked! If I see you anywhere near this Lord’s territory again, I’ll give you ten lashes!” The laughter continued to resound. “No, no. This is far too lenient for you.
“The plot of land your mother has been buried beneath will be reclaimed. You penniless scum birthed from a whore, do you think your blood is worthy to be interred on the property of this esteemed Knight?!
“You have three days to remove your mother’s filthy corpse from my lands or you’ll face the penalty of death!
“I, Gauteron, Knight under the Witness of her Holiness, Yves, declare it so!”
Leonidas’ fists clenched, but his tendons were so weak he couldn’t even make his bones crackle.
He stared toward Gauteron as though to sear this image into his mind. But such a look only made Gauteron’s sneer deepen.
Leonidas was already 19 years old today. He had lived his whole life in this shabby old town with a population of not even a thousand. By now, the number of people he had dealings with was numerous and there wasn’t a single soul that didn’t know his name nor the fact his mother was, indeed, a whore.
In these 19 years, how many times had he been humiliated? How many times had people stepped over his head? How many times was he treated no differently from dirt?
Yet, wasn’t he still standing here doing nothing but glowering and cursing? What had he accomplished? What had he done to make anyone take him seriously?
The crowd continued to watch. But, as expected, just like it was every time, Leonidas could only walk away, his posture arched into a slouch.
Gauteron’s laughter resounded again.
“Fuck! Someone come clean this shit up! I’ll give you one copper!”
The crowd surged, pushing and shoving. The result was many knocking against Leonidas, trying to make way. It seemed that everything about the previous show had been forgotten in the face of money.
As for Leonidas, he too was forgotten. Hardly anyone spared him a glance after Gauteron’s decree was levied.
It could be said that Gauteron was Leonidas’ final hope to make something of himself in this town. Now that he had lost it, there was nothing left for him.
He had truly tried everything. But in the end, he couldn’t lay down his pride.
Leonidas sat on his knees before a small gravestone, if it could be called that at all.
The land that Gauteron so graciously allowed him to use for his mother’s burial was located in a half-burnt expanse of immature trees. All around, trunks no thicker than even Leonidas’ own wrist poked out of the ground at awkward angles. Just to make it here every time he visited, Leonidas would need to suffer the cuts and scrapes of this unkempt land.
This place, which Gauteron apparently valued enough to snatch away from Leonidas, was just a small corner of his land right at the very edge, not far from a sheer cliff. Even from here, Leonidas could hear the sounds of tall waves crashing against the rock.
The sharp branches and unkempt trees were actually kept here to make sure none of the livestock traveled too far and fell off. When things were put that way, burying his mother here really did seem quite sad. Well, not that he would be able to continue to do so for much longer.
Without a word, Leonidas bowed his head in apology before reaching for the gravestone and pulling it up from the ground.
The so-called ‘gravestone’ was actually nothing more than a plank of wood Leonidas had carved some words into with a butter knife.
His mother’s name was just ‘Red’. It was a fantastic name for a whore, truly. Leonidas couldn’t commend the one who gave her such a name any more.
However, the name he wrote on the ‘gravestone’ was Yvette.
‘Here Lies a Loving Mother’
‘Yvette’
If others knew that Leonidas had given his mother such a name, he may very well be burnt at the stake.
Yves was the name of the God their small town worshipped. It was quite taboo to have a name that sounded even somewhat similar. It only made it worse that Leonidas had specifically chosen this name because he felt it was the better version of Yves.
Respect for the Gods? Leonidas had never had such a thing. But who knows, maybe that was why his life was so terrible in the first place. Maybe if he had some Faith, things wouldn’t be this bad.
This wasn’t the first time Leonidas had changed a name. His own mother had actually named him ‘Fox’, quite apropos given his lineage, but Leonidas had always wanted a name that could make others quake in fear. So, as soon as he managed to learn to read and write, he changed his own name to the most powerful sounding one he could think of.
It wasn’t long after, though, that Leonidas realized how meaningless it was for his name to sound like it had strength if he had none of his own.
Leonidas gently placed his mother’s gravestone down and began to dig through th e ground. Of course, he could use nothing but his hands, pulling up clumps of dirt as large as he could muster one by one.
Though his arms trembled beneath the strain, Leonidas’ movements seemed machine-like. One scoop after another, he worked his way down.
Using a shovel? Only the rich could afford to use iron in such extravagant ways. A wooden shovel, maybe? If only Leonidas had the money to spend on such a thing.
Just the plank of partially rotting wood he used to mark his mother’s grave used up two weeks of his savings. Everything in this world cost something. Clean water, wood, iron… The only thing that seemed worthless in this place was human life itself.
Well, not that Leonidas was exactly human.
Leonidas’ mother, Yvette, was a Red Fox Half-Beast. As for his father? Well, that was a funny tale indeed.
There was no touching love story to be told here. Nor might there be a heartfelt reunion later on down Leonidas’ road.
The union of Yvette and Leonidas’ father was the product of a battle. Their small town, just about 20 years ago, was ravaged by an enemy town just 10 kilometers away from their current settlement.
As for Leonidas’ father? He was a Lower Ogre part of the enemy army that just so happened to choose to rape his mother on that fateful night. According to the other whores of the brothel Yvette worked at, his ‘father’ had died humping his mother after being shot through the skull by an arrow.
Truly a manly way to die, Leonidas had to admit. He managed to pass on his seed even in his final moments. A real trooper.
Somehow, his mother survived both being impaled by such a cock and subsequently being crushed beneath what must have been at least half a ton of flesh before eventually giving birth to him months later.
The result? It was him, Leonidas, in the flesh.
He had the blood of the Red Fox, a member of the Lower Half-Beasts, while also having the blood of a Lower Ogre, the weakest of the Giant race.
One would have thought that the least his father could do was give him an ugly mug, but nope. Leonidas gained all the delicate, uselessly fragile flesh of the Red Fox. At the same time, though his bone structure was also that of a Red Fox, his bone density was that of an Ogre.
It was a beautiful combination, indeed. His body weighed over 200 kilograms despite the fact he was only six feet tall, or so he believed. His flesh was too weak to withstand his heavy bones, so his posture was constantly slouched, making it quite difficult to tell what his true height was. All his movements were slow and lugging his body around was a chore in and of itself.
To make matters worse, he was handsome. Devilishly so. He had the broad back, shoulders and stature of a giant but the delicate features of a dainty beauty.
One might think that this was a joke, but this was the real world. A cruel world that sought to rip your heart out at every turn.
As Leonidas’ delicate flesh was torn against the coarse soil he was slowly digging up, he remembered how Gauteron pushed him to his knees and tried to shove that foul thing into his mouth.
For the first time in a long time, his shoulders trembled, his red eyes glistening with unshed humiliation.
What Was The Use?
The foul odor of rotting flesh assaulted Leonidas. He could barely afford a marker for his mother’s grave, so how could he afford a casket?
Without a choice, Leonidas could only enlist the help of the women from the brothel to sow together his mother’s various outfits into a large patchwork sheet he could wrap her body with. About the only good thing was that he had managed to find a patch of wild poisonous plants to add in, saving his mother’s corpse from the fate of being ravaged by insects and beasts.
It looked quite ridiculous after being unearthed, even worse when accounting for all the soil, maggots and worms, but Leonidas still treated it with all the care he could muster.
Slowly lowering himself into the deep hole, Leonidas’ head still managed to barely peak over the edge with his slouch.
Without a care for the gross state of his mother’s wrappings, he lowered his tail and balanced her rigid corpse on it. After securing it with a single wrap-around, Leonidas clenched his jaw, digging up all the remaining strength he had in an attempt to crawl out.
By now, the sun had long since set. It was already into the second day of the time limit Gauteron had given Leonidas. Under such dim lighting, even Leonidas’ usually striking red hair was muted.
Unsurprisingly, Leonidas gained the red hair his mother was so loved for in her line of work. Though, his hair was quite coarse and even felt somewhat like steel needles if caught at the right angle.
Leonidas’ tail was a lot like this too. Not only was it the same fiery shade of red, it was much longer than a normal Half-Beast’s tail being at about two meters long alone and was also covered in the same coarse hair. Though, since these hairs were far shorter, their sharpness was more apparent.
It would be great if Leonidas could use his tail in battle, but it was filled with the same heavy bones the rest of his body was afflicted with. Using it for slow, large movements like this was about the best he could do.
The coarse ground that Leonidas had hated so much on the way down helped him greatly on the way up. He was able to easily gain footholds, digging his toes and fingers into the dirt wall for leverage.
It was at that moment, though, that a sound caused Leonidas’ sharp ears to twitch. Whether it was Lower Ogres or Red Foxes, both were quite known for their sensory abilities. Ogres had poor sight, but great hearing. Red Foxes had both great sight and hearing. Leonidas wasn’t lucky enough to get the best of both, so he was stuck with mediocre eyesight, but higher-than-average hearing.
It could be said that the only good thing he had gotten from his parents’ union was this. Oh, and his biting strength was excellent as well, more so due to the strength of his bones and the length of his canines. Not that he got the opportunity to use it much considering how poor his diet was.
Leonidas sighed because he knew exactly what the sound was the moment he heard it. It was a pouch of coins.
As handsome as Leonidas was after inheriting his mother’s looks, it wasn’t a surprise that his mother was a very popular whore. What Leonidas didn’t know until she died was that she hadn’t used all that money on her new outfits, she had saved a large portion of it.
After she died, Leonidas found that pouch and a letter.
He had already lost count of the number of times he had read his mother’s final words. Even now, it was tucked into a pocket by his chest, remaining close to his heart.
In that pouch, there were exactly 74 silver and 39 copper coins. This was the equivalent of 7439 copper coins, an amount of wealth that Leonidas didn’t think he would see in this lifetime. Yet, there it had been, sitting in a hidden compartment of his mother’s room.
However, when he saw such a sum of money, this wasn’t what he experienced at all. What he saw was beyond the heft of the pouch and the size of the sum.
A single night with his mother cost 30 coppers. Of those 30 coppers, if the House Lady was in a good mood, his mother would see five. If she was in a bad mood, his mother would be lucky to see even one.
Even with the most optimistic of calculations, his mother would have had to sleep with a man over 1400 times to gather such a sum. And, none of this included what she would have had to spend to raise him, to buy her outfits, to keep herself fed… The list was endless.
When he saw this money Leonidas saw all his mother’s hardships, he saw the abuse she suffered through, the humiliation, the pain. He remembered the nights when her face was marred by bruises and the days she came home with broken limbs.
And in all that time, Leonidas had never seen her break down even once. Even when she had grown old, too aged to earn as much as she had in the past, she continued to weather the storm, slowly saving up this money piece by piece for the sake of giving her son a chance.
Then, one day, her luck finally ran out.
She was already used goods in the eyes of the House Lady. Her face no longer as pretty, destroyed by age and constant abuse, Leonidas’ mother became nothing more than a plaything for those with the sickest of fetishes, the sorts of customers the House Lady didn’t want to waste her ‘good girls’ on.
