Dissonance 4 – What gives?! [Otto POV]

Otto reached into the inside pocket of his suit. Thick fingers pushed down and aside the various notes he kept in there. One of the yellow slips fluttered to the ground. Otto checked which one of the debts that one belonged to. “Gotta collect that later,” he grunted and stuffed the crumpled paper back into one of the pockets. Another second of rustling and rummaging later, he found what he was looking for.

The sandwich was wrapped up in sticky foil. The sauce had long since seeped through the bread. Otto didn’t care, he needed the snack. The fantastic aroma of well-aged cheese and tuna filled his nose. Someone besides him cleared their throat.

“Wot?” Otto pushed the air aggressively past his tusks. They weren’t as big as his mother’s, but that was to be expected. After all, he was only half an ogre. “Got a problem?!”

“Yeah, got a problem?!” The orc henchman with him immediately backed up his kingpin – as he was supposed to. Otto was the king of downtown, he always had support. That’s how that was supposed to go!

The man immediately fell in line. “Nothin’,” he slurred under his breath, then closed his eyes to focus on his meditation.

Otto stared at the Echo in the guy’s lap. Between bites of his soaked sandwich, he considered… appropriating it for better purposes. The puny little guy couldn’t have stopped him. He was just another pale-skinned human. Otto was two metres tall and had the proud, grey skin of an ogre, stretching over his peak male physique!

Alas, Otto couldn’t steal from people inside the building. He had to wait until they were outside! Wouldn’t be a problem either. He already had one Core, a big Earth one. He was just in this lesson because he needed a little refresher was all. It had been a couple years since he had gotten the sponsorship from the scary clown.

One last bite, then the sandwich was gone. Hand sticky with sauce, he wiped it off on his white shirt, then scratched the exposed bottom of his thick belly. The tailor had once insisted that he needed more room for his gut. A couple smacks had gotten it in the moron’s head that a good belly was to be put on display like a fat pair of tits.

Speaking of which, that gremlin deserved to be made to squeal under a real man. Otto would pick her up later. Not like that twink she bickered with could stop him.

While the teacher was around, Otto had to focus on what he had come to do. He grabbed the Tarnished Echo and crossed his legs. He adjusted his bowtie, then concentrated on the mineral. ‘Done this before, will do this again,’ he thought. He took a loud inhale, growing into a very loud snort. That scratched something at the back of his throat. ‘Better. No…’

Otto had tried this on his own the last week. It had just been too long since he last Cultivated. With the explanation he had been given (and thirty minutes of trying), however, he felt his genius reawaken. The tingle from the rock connected to his soul. It was a faint touch of the infinite, like a cool breeze carrying on it the scent of fresh meats and shackled slave women.

Truly, all would ‘aww’ at his genius within seconds.

“Awww.” “Wow!” “Incredible!”

“That’s right,” Otto hummed and opened his red eyes. “If you want to come work for me then-“

“Uh, boss, they ain’t talking about you…”

How tactless! Otto glared at his henchman, causing the orc to shrink away. ‘Yeah, you better!’ the half-ogre thought. ‘If you weren’t my only henchman on this trip, I’d squeeze your skull into a meatball!’ The anger of the kingpin turned to the rest of the room. ‘Now who’s grabbing my glory?!’

Otto couldn’t even see her at first, because she was just tits and ass covered by other people. “Yeah, yeah, I am the best, I know!” the gremlin declared. “Try to keep up with me. You’ll fail, of course, but that’s just the price you pay for not being me.”

“Arrogant bitch, someone’s gotta fuck that out of her,” Otto grumbled. “Right?”

“So roight, boss!” the orc agreed in his downtown accent.

Otto pushed air out of his nose, then closed his eyes again. He would just dazzle all of these fools by reaching the Nascent Soul before anyone else here! Sure, he’d need more Echo for that than anyone else there, but he knew what he was doing! Plus, he had some shards of Cracked Echo mixed in with his batches! No problem for him at all.

Pushing away the outside world was totally easy. He just focused on his empty stomach. The three sandwiches he had eaten in the last half hour just weren’t enough to keep his peak male physique running. That hunger was his tool, his shortcut to draw the energy of the Echo into his soul.

His soul was a temple – a temple to the justified hunger he felt! It took the form of an industrial meat grinder, its teeth endlessly circling, turning food, money and bodies into a steady slurry of entertainment for him to devour. Yes, this was what he was working for! For everyone and everything to be his. That stupid fucking clown would be ass up, top down before him eventually! He’d pull on those twin tails until…

A mildly distracting sound pulled Otto out of his power fantasies. ‘No one got any fucking manners,’ the half-ogre thought, trying to get back into the mindset.

“No way,” he heard someone mutter.

Wait…

That was the teacher’s voice!

Otto’s eyes opened again. He stared across the room. His first instinct was to look for the gremlin again. Though she was close to the source of it all, she wasn’t actually what held the general attention this time.

No, the spotlight thief was the twink next to her! That brown-haired beta male sat there, his face scrunched up like he was chewing an entire lemon. The chunk of Tarnished Echo in his lap was visibly vibrating, giving off two different sounds at once. That was so distracting! What was wrong with him? People were supposed to create harmonious sounds, not that dissonant note!

Among the many mumbles of the room, one gorgeous voice was heard above all others, carried on half of the dissonance. “That’s it, Eldred,” whispered the ghostly pale woman behind the twink. She was in the proper position for a woman, pressing her tits up against the man’s back, she just had picked the wrong male for it! “Focus on the obstacles. You will not let them stop you. You will overcome it all. Pain is weakness leaving the body.”

What kind of pathetic excuse of a man needed a woman’s affirmation for anything? Otto spit out, his thick saliva making a foamy, wet spot on the gleaming floor.

He forced his eyes shut again. All those morons would be left in the dust and then they would see his brilliance and beg to be his henchmen! Yeah! That was how this was supposed to go! He wasn’t really here because he needed pointers, totally not. Therefore, he was only listening to the teacher explain things to others out of courtesy.

“T-that’s right!” the teacher sounded sooooo impressed with that guy. “To properly Cultivate, it’s best to visualise your own power expanding. Lifting heavier and heavier weights, giving to others, ordering the world, that sort of thing.”

‘He’s giving them the bad advice,’ Otto thought, grinning to himself, and sank back into his fantasy realm. He was going to smack that gremlin about until she would stop giving that bratty backtalk, then use her throat for as long as she was good for it. Then, when that twink would come to free her, he’d have his henchman beat the guy up and fuck his ghost woman in front of him.

That was a visualisation that made Otto feel powerful! Taking and taking and taking, just like he was taking the mana of Iridescia and turning it into his Ki. What kind of cuck imagined themselves tilling fields?

The room finally went quiet for a bit. No comments, no questions for the teacher, just the humming of the Echo in his lap and that dissonant scratch of that ‘Elliot’ guy.

“Uhhh, boss.” The orc henchman tugged on Otto’s sleeve. Grunting, the half-ogre repressed his desire to break his nose with his elbow. Orcs were ugly enough as it stood. Couldn’t even grow a stylish strip in the middle of his bald head.

“What?” Otto asked, without opening his eyes.

“Didn’t youz say that it toiks loik 3 days to get to Nascent Soul for others?”

“Yeah, took me three days and I’m a super prodigy,” Otto grunted. “Why?”

“’Cuz de hummie is all firey and stuff.”

Otto’s eyes flew open. Everyone was staring slack-jawed at the twink and Otto joined them. The guy was shirtless now, for whatever stupid reason. His skin was slick with sweat. He got exhausted from sitting! How could he possibly already be at the Nascent Soul?!

No matter what Otto wanted to tell himself, the truth lay in the man’s lap. Tarnished Echo, glowing with ethereal red fire. At times, the flames were extinguished by a rising of water. Was he Cultivating at extra speed?! WAS HE CULTIVATING TWO ELEMENTS AT ONCE?!

“OY!” Otto shattered the silence and jumped to his feet. “What gives?! Why can this pathetic scarecrow do that?!”

The ghost woman directed her gaze at him. Though the runny makeup suggested she was about to cry, the icy blue of her eyes carried something unnervingly sharp. Otto almost took a step back because of it – but of course, he stood his ground. What kind of half-ogre was intimidated by some pale goth chick in a secretary outfit?

Certainly not Otto the Kingpin!

“Answers!” he bellowed instead. “Now!”

“He’s got a dissonant soul because of his contract with the banshee with him,” the teacher explained, casting an annoyingly respecting gaze down at the twink. “He’s Cultivating with it.”

“Give me one of those then!” Otto demanded.

“Do you… know what that entails?” the teacher asked slowly.

“I know that you’re holding back a secret technique to Cultivate faster! We should all be pissed about that!” Otto spread his arms out, inviting everyone else to join him in his complaints. No one did. A warning glare changed that.

“Y-yeah!” the orc shouted. “Give the boss his dissonant soul! No one’s more deserving than super-prodigy Otto!”

“It’s not nice to brag!” Otto angrily snapped at his subordinate.

“S-sorry boss…”

It was beyond difficult not to pulp everyone in that room, especially that brown-haired beta. He was just sitting there, Cultivating, getting his scalp massaged by that cold-eyed banshee. ‘Wait a second, a banshee? How the fuck did that boy tame a fucking banshee?’

“We can artificially induce a dissonant soul…” the teacher said slowly. “If you’re really…” He stopped himself, then gave Otto one more look. Finally, he seemed to realize the importance he had the honour of addressing. “You know what, I will just show you. Sit back down.”

Otto did as instructed. The teacher walked across, then behind the half-ogre. Impressed by Otto’s sheer girth, the teacher took a step back. He took several slow breaths to prepare himself for the moment he would step up to the future owner of the largest collection of women and meat stores in Iridescia!

The teacher’s hand pressed against Otto’s back. “I am going to connect a part of my Ki to yours,” he said. “Since we are not twins or otherwise linked by fate, this will introduce the dissonance. Once you are ready, start to Cultivate.”

Otto was ready, of course. He closed his eyes, pulled at the Echo and-

A high-pitched wail tore from his throat. The hand on his back was pressing through his entire body! It was an insurmountable pain, like a hydraulic press just mounting and mounting. Otto leapt forwards, catapulting out of his cross-legged position as fast as reflexes would carry him. He wanted to shout at the teacher, but his lungs were empty.

“That’s just a taste of a dissonant soul,” the teacher said, then looked over to the twink. “Perhaps you’re starting to appreciate the willpower we’re witnessing here?”

“Fuck that. You’re just fucking with me. There’s no way he’s Cultivating with pain like that.” Otto managed to croak. He shambled to his feet. With a fast swipe, he grabbed his crystal-rock from the floor. “You’re just abusing your position of power because you can’t stand my musk. Well, I am taking my Echo and my business and I am going home! Can’t concentrate with all of you cheating losers around! I’ll find a better Cultivation facility!”

“B-boss… I haven’t even started to… p-please?” the orc begged but obediently followed. Like a good henchman, he eventually fell silent.

All of this was a big fucking joke!