Clonemancy: Ascension Through a Thousand Clones [LitRPG Multiple Bodies Progression Fantasy]

30. Operation Uproot

by inkadmin

“Urgh.”

Alistair blocked the strike and shifted across the trainer’s line, trying to turn the exchange into something Off-Balance could use. The skill gave him a faint sense of where the man’s footing would become unstable, but his body still had to follow. He still had to place the steps correctly, shift his weight at the right moment, and commit before the opening vanished. The wooden training sword complained in his hands, and his wrists matched the complaint, promising pain later. Fortunately, later the pain would be dismissed with the clone.

The trainer pressed him again. Another blow came down, heavier this time, followed by a quick correction when Alistair tried to slide to the side. He got the blade in the way, but only barely, and the impact still shoved him back half a step. He tried to close instead of retreating, shoulder angling inward to spoil the next swing, but the trainer simply shifted with him, caught his rhythm, and tapped him in the ribs with the point before he could recover.

“That would have gone through you,” the man said.

Alistair grunted and reset his stance.

Damar, the weapon instructor, looked unimpressed. Actually, he always did. The man was compact and thick, with the build of someone who had repeated the same skill motions for years until they had stopped being motions and become instincts. He favored the spear and staff in demonstration, but he knew the rest well enough, and he knew exactly where a weak student’s limits were.

He came in again. Alistair met the first swing, lost ground under the second, and only avoided the third by doing something clumsy and half-guided by skill instinct instead of sound form. He lowered his point, shifted his grip, and let the body of the wooden sword take more of the force than it should have. It worked to block the strike, but it also left him open to a shoulder check that sent him stumbling sideways.

The exchange ended there.

Damar stepped back and let the training sword rest against one shoulder. “Break.”

Alistair did not argue. He lowered his own sword and rolled one wrist, then the other, feeling the ache properly now that the immediate pressure had eased.

Damar watched him for a moment, then said, “I’ve told you before. You should focus on more flexible weapons. Staff, spear, or knife, if you must. You don’t have the strength to use the sword well.”

Alistair gave him a strained smile. “You did, but I still want the basics. We can go back to staff and spear after this. Just in case.”

The trainer snorted. “You don’t need to master every weapon.”

“I’m not trying to master them,” Alistair said. “I want enough familiarity that if I end up with one in my hand, I don’t become useless.”

Alistair kept going, careful not to sound overreaching. “Spear and staff are still my first options. The reach helps, and I can actually move with them. But I also want the basics with sword, club, knife, and whatever else people commonly use.”

Damar lowered the sword from his shoulder. “I get you. The problem is time. Every hour you spend forcing yourself through sword work is an hour taken from the weapons where you’ve actually got a chance.”

Alistair nodded. “Then I’ll take the slow way. Spear and staff for real progress, and the rest just for familiarity.”

The instructor let out a short breath through his nose. “You really are serious about this.”

“Yes.”

Damar jerked his head toward the rack. “Fine. We keep the sword for stance, guard, cuts, and recovery. Nothing fancy. You’re still not built for it, and I’m not pretending otherwise. But if you keep paying, I’ll keep teaching.”

Damar had wanted, from the beginning, to nudge him toward one sensible weapon path and build real competence there first. Under normal circumstances, that would have been the correct approach. But Alistair’s whole strategy had always depended on options, and he wanted that principle to carry into weapon use as well. Becoming a swordsman was unnecessary. He needed basic familiarity with many weapons so a clone holding one would not become a liability.

After only a week of lessons, he had already decided to invest more. The instructors had clearly expected him to slow down or give up once he understood what training actually felt like. Instead, he kept going.

After another round of drills and one final bruising exchange, he gave Damar a proper thanks, returned the training sword, and stepped out. As soon as he was out of sight, the clone dissolved.

It was time to resume the operation.

Not far from Dorelle, in a village called Clovermead, Alistair’s real body lay comfortably on a bed and looked over a sheet of names.

The place had been an excellent find. Clovermead had turned its dairy trade into a small business aimed at visitors from Verevain, the port, and sometimes even farther away. Guests came to stay in nice rooms, eat rich farm meals, and briefly pretend they found cattle milking sheds charming. The whole arrangement still looked strange to him. Who paid to experience farm work? Apparently, enough people did that he had needed to wait a week for one of the five guest rooms.

This time, the place served a better purpose. He had brought his main body here because running tonight’s mission from Verevain would waste too much clone time in travel. The northern villages beyond Dorelle were too scattered. But from Clovermead, they became manageable.

He looked at the parchment again. Falsehand and Shade had managed to uncover eight names tied directly to child collection across the Dorelle region. Not people who just looked away. There were too many of those, and it was not his place to judge them. These were active collectors, handlers, buyers, or abductors. People who knew exactly what the children were being sold into and chose to profit anyway.

He had decided not to act until he had as many names as he could get. If he struck too early, the others would notice. If one village panicked too soon, the nearby ones would flee. So he wanted as much of the network hit in one sweep as possible.

There were moral questions in what he was about to do, but he simply had no interest in dragging himself through them now. These people were not ambiguous. Almost every name on the list already carried a history of theft, coercion, violence, or worse. The island had let them continue, and now they were taking children. If the island failed to stop them, he would do it himself.

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Four clones left Clovermead riding in pairs on two mounts. One was the older mount from the Lantern Court. The other was the newer purchase that still irritated him. A cart would have been cheaper, but also slower, more visible, and less useful afterward. The second mount had hurt his purse, but it made tonight possible.

The four clones headed for the farthest villages first. The near targets could be handled later with refreshed bodies. The distant ones needed the longest travel time, so they had to start while there was still light.

Roughly half an hour later, the first pair tied their mount to a tree outside a small roadside village and approached on foot.

The formation was familiar by now. Shade scouted first. The second clone moved in only once the target’s presence had been confirmed. There was no need for Escapee here. Discretion mattered less than speed. The purpose was simple. Strike, confirm the kill, and leave before people noticed.

The first target spent most evenings at the village’s combined tavern, store, and post room. The arrangement had surprised Alistair when he first saw it, but he had since learned many villages worked that way. One building did the work of three because three separate ones would have been wasteful.

He had watched the man often enough to know the pattern. He drank, complained, then drank more. Eventually, he would step outside behind the building to relieve himself.

It took nearly an hour that night. When the man finally came around the back and out of sight, Roughhand approached from the dark. The collector looked at him suspiciously and started to speak, but Alistair gave him no time. Roughhand drove a fist into the man’s stomach first, not to hurt him badly, but to fold him over and interrupt the first reaction. The man bent, tried to strike back, and reached instinctively toward where a knife should have been. Roughhand got hold of both wrists first. The grab destabilized him immediately. That was one of the things Alistair had already learned in training. People thought of blows and cuts as fighting, but often forgot how disruptive a well-timed grab could be when the other person was unprepared.

Before the target could recover, Shade came in from behind and stabbed him. Once, again, and a third time to be sure.

There might have been cleaner ways to do it, but Alistair wanted certainty. High PER could still make Shade’s sudden approach register, even with Fade. High VIT could also keep a target alive longer than expected. Approaching unarmed first made the collector treat Roughhand like a lesser threat, and that gave Shade the opening.

Afterward, Roughhand held the man upright until he stopped struggling. Then they lowered the body, checked him quickly, and found only a handful of shards worth taking. The amount was barely worth taking, but Alistair took it anyway.

Meanwhile, the second pair approached another target in another village. This one was a widow, middle-aged, respectable on the surface, and patient enough to avoid obvious mistakes. She used sweets, kindness, and sleeping potions instead of force. Children vanished around her only when they were isolated and unlikely to be immediately missed. That made her harder to investigate, but easier to kill. She lived alone, slept deeply, and had no chance once Shade entered her room and the second clone pinned the blankets before she could cry out.

The pattern repeated through several villages. Quick entry, sudden strike, and quiet exits. No clone stayed in one place long enough to see the consequences.

By the time the outer targets were down, the operation’s focus had narrowed toward Bracken Hollow.

That village was different. It was the place Lauren had been taken to for a short time, and it held a whole cluster of collectors, more like a gang than a chain. They passed children onward toward Dorelle, intimidated the locals, and turned the village’s weakness into their own domain.

After the crop disaster, Bracken Hollow had never fully recovered its balance. The gang had grown into that weakness and taken hold. The village chief had been subdued or bought. The rest of the village had learned silence. Families who pushed too hard lost children or suffered other punishments. A few children were kept there for labor and abuse rather than sold onward. They did not even bother with subtlety, but still remained unchallenged. Until tonight.

And unlike the other targets, these men were dangerous. Alistair already had more clones moving in that direction by then. The mounts were being used as shuttles, bringing refreshed bodies from Clovermead and carrying others back when needed. Still, he knew he was outmatched in skill. Five outlaws with years, perhaps decades, of violence behind them would not fall as easily as drunks and village predators.

Then the Guide pulsed.

Personal Guide

Class

Clonemancer

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