Epoch: A Berserker's Rise

Chapter 110: Phobia

Adam and the guards joined Yokgu, who was waiting patiently. The leader of the guards then said "Strangely, two people stumbled on our camp today What a coincidence. Both of you need to wait for half an hour before entering the water. Why don't you get to know each other in the meantime? However, I must warn you, fights aren't allowed here, and if any of you start a fight, you will be killed."

Adam and Yokgu both nodded, and Adam sat on the ground. As for Neith, she decided to go underground, because there wasn't much space for her and her size was making her uncomfortable on the ground.

Yokgu sat in front of Adam and said "I heard a lot about you, Aqua Sovereign. They say you are very strong."

Adam nodded and said "I also heard about you, Fire Sovereign." Yokgu grinned, showing his large tusk like teeth, and he said "I still don't have many feats to my name, my family won't let me out of my house. Actually, this is my first trip out of Yam."

Adam asked "Where are you headed?" Yokgu didn't even hesitate as he replied "The Holy Temple. What about you?" Adam replied "Yam."

Yokgu laughed out, so loud that he startled the surrounding guards, and he exclaimed "You will see, Yam is a beautiful city! And it's even warm all year I don't understand how you can live in a place like Fjora, it's always cold over there."

Adam shrugged and said "I don't live there, but even when I went over there I didn't mind the cold. I guess your race prefer hot weathers while we prefer cold ones."

Yokgu slapped his thigh, making the ground tremble a little, and said with his still loud voice "That's right, you are one of those otherworlders! You are quite different from the others I met, most were disappointing."

Adam smiled helplessly, Yokgu seemed to be a direct person, who had trouble hiding his emotions. He said "My world is very different from this one, we don't live similar lives over there But I can't tell you much, our gods forbade us to."

Yokgu nodded and said "The gods can be mysterious at times, and understanding their will can be hard. I'm sure there is a reason for them not wanting you to reveal too much about your world."

Yokgu then looked toward the ground, and his face turned a little paler as he said "You have a nice pet"

Adam squinted his eyes before he asked with a playful smile "I do. If you want, I can ask Neith to come up and say hi"

But he didn't even finish his sentence that Yokgu paled even more and he hurriedly said "No need! No need! Nice spider!"

Adam chuckled and said "Are you perhaps scared of spiders?" Yokgu became flustered as he got up and took out his great axe and roared "I am a mighty Sovereign, I am afraid of nothing!"

This only made Adam laugh louder at the orc, who tried to look as valiant as he could, but it only made him funnier. After a moment, Adam calmed himself down and he said "It's alright to be scared of something you know."

Yokgu, who was flexing his muscles and was all puffed up, suddenly deflated as he sat back on the ground and he said "I am supposed to be my race's future, how could people rely on me if I am scared?"

This made Adam smile slightly, Yokgu was only a kid after all. Adam was a special case, although he was 20, he had also all the memories of Old Adam, who was 50, and thus his mentality was very different from other people of his age.

Adam still retained some of his youthfulness, but in many ways he behaved like an older person, especially when he talked to other people. And that's why, seeing Yokgu being so stressed about his future, made him smile.

He knew what stress was, he had lived through it, and died because of it, so Yokgu reminded him of himself, in a way.

So he patted the Orc's shoulder and said "I'm not a specialist, but from what I know, the best way to go past your fear, is to understand it. If you want, I can ask Neith to show herself, she won't do anything to you."

Yokgu seemed to hesitate, but before he could answer Neith emerged from the ground. She didn't expose her entire body though, but only the upper part of it, most of her legs were still in the ground.

Yokgu paled once again as he was being stared at by eight eyes, but Neith stayed immobile, under Adam's order. Adam then said "Try to pet her. Be gentle."

Yokgu slowly moved his hand toward Neith's head, and both Adam and Neith could see his hand was trembling, a lot.

So, as Yokgu was slowing more and more the closer he got to her head, Neith moved by herself and placed her head under his hand. Usually she would have been quite annoyed by this, but thankfully for Yokgu she was in a great mood because they had discovered Orui's Oasis.

Yokgu jumped like he had been shocked by electricity, and he almost took his hand off of her, but he found out he couldn't move his hand. Adam had grabbed his wrist, and he looked at Yokgu in the eyes and said "She won't eat you. Come on, pet her."

He let go of his the orc's wrist, who stared at Neith, obviously ready to away the moment she did something out of the line. But contrarily to his expectations, she didn't move, and allowed him to pet her, she even closed her eyes as she laid half in the ground.

Adam smiled and said "See? Spiders aren't that scary. They are simply another kind of living being, just like you, me or any other monster."

Yokgu remained silent, but he continued petting her. The minutes passed, and Yokgu didn't seem to want to stop. After ten minutes of continuous petting, Neith had to move her mandibles threateningly to make him back off.

Adam laughed at the shocked Yokgu and he said "What did you expect, would you like to have someone scratch your head for ten minutes?"

Realization dawned on Yokgu as he silently apologized to Neith. She ignored him and went back to her nap, but as she tried to get a quick sleep she could feel Yokgu's eyes were glued on her. She complained to Adam through their minds, threatening to eat him if he didn't stop being creepy, but he calmed her down, Yokgu looked like a nice person, he didn't want to traumatize him.

While Yokgu was processing what had happened, Adam asked him "You are from Yam, so you should know more about this Oasis than me. Do you know why the guards I mean the priests are so weak?"

Indeed, this was something that surprised Adam a lot. The guards were all around Level 80-90, and even though there seemed to be around a hundred of them, this wasn't enough to protect the place at all.

Yokgu was brought back from his stunned state as he replied "We don't know much about this place, but I think that the arrays hiding this place from everyone is also capable of attacking. Even a Legend could die trying to forcefully enter or steal the water. Maybe the strongest Legends would be able to get away, but not without stealing some of the water. That's probably why, the priests don't need to be very powerful."

Adam nodded, this made sense. Orui's Priests present here would live here their whole life, and their life would be dedicated to worshiping Orui, so they didn't really care about Strength, but more about knowledge.

Orui himself was the God of Knowledge, and his priests in his Oasis were said to be among the most knowledgeable people in the entire world, aside from the Citadel of course.

The group of three didn't have to wait for much longer before a priest came to them and said "The pond is now ready, you may follow me to enter it."