《Infinite Horizon》 Prologue: ZERO

Prologue

At some point in time after a boring car ride, we arrived at a rather prestigious restaurant in the Box Tower, a building that towered over the surrounding skyscrapers. Inside, a rather portly man I identified as Robert Hughes energetically waved at us. He was a hefty old man with short, somewhat white beard that ended in a point. His tie fluttered gently in the wind as he waved toward us. ¡°Steele Johnson, when you say you can win, you really deliver! I bet twenty million on your team winning internationals and by god you delivered! No one thought you¡¯d win so I had 5:1 odds easy!¡± ¡°Yeah, Charlotte got mad at me for betting 250k too, but look how that turned out!¡± I said, grinning at her. ¡°That could have gone poorly tho-!¡± ¡°Easiest one point five mil I¡¯ve ever made,¡± I finished. ¡°After further examination¡­ it could have been the right decision,¡± she conceded before lightly punching me in the gut. ¡°Why aren¡¯t you two married yet¡­ You¡¯re so goddamn perfect for each other!¡± Robert cooed. ¡°Well, maybe one of these days.¡± I winked at him, unnoticed by Charlotte and discretely patted my pocket. By god, that was a 100k ring. This had better be more perfect than¡­ well, something perfect. ¡°About time, if I do say so myself,¡± a jovial voice suddenly interjected. Well, if it isn¡¯t my partner in crime, Kyle. ¡°How has life been to you, Kyle?¡± I ask. ¡°Oh the crosses we have to bear!¡± he boomed dramatically, ¡°the Islandic State is calling for my execution again!¡±If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°Who wants to kill him this time?¡± Qing-Jao asked as she walked up the steps with Evan in her wake. She gracefully walked up the stairs and folded her sunglasses before depositing them in her pocket. ¡°Let¡¯s go inside first,¡± Robert suggested to the group, ¡°It¡¯ll be more comfortable with air conditioning and refreshments.¡± We nodded in agreement and followed him into his restaurant. It was quite a relief to be out of the hot and humid air. Once we were seated, Robert had refreshments delivered. ¡°C¡¯mon guys, everything¡¯s on the house! Order more! You deserve it after your total domination at internationals!¡± ¡°In that case, I think I¡¯ll go all out!¡± I exclaim, delighted. Suddenly, an explosion rocked the entire building. A second later, gunfire echoed throughout the building while bullets rained mercilessly all around, sending plaster flying everywhere. Calmly, I kicked the table over and ducked down while I drew my Colt M1911 and flipped off the safety. Looking around me, I saw many bodyguards act similarly. I made eye contact with one and we both instinctively nodded. We both peeked out of our corners and emptied our magazines on the perpetrators, several of which went down. I clearly saw multiple bullets hit one in the chest, however he didn¡¯t even flinch. ¡°They¡¯re wearing body armor! Aim for the head!¡± I yell out. ¡°Understood!¡± someone replied. I continued firing several more went down from our concentrated fire. However, they had really bad aim. A bullet blasted through the table and punched its way through my chest. ¡°Dammit, I jinxed it.¡± ¡¸Critical Warning: Biometric Sensor B indicated a rapid drop in blood pressure! Immediately seek medical assistance!¡¹ That¡¯s probably my heart... All of a sudden, I felt extremely light headed as if I stood up too quickly. Understanding that I was living on borrowed time, I immediately broke cover and charged, letting off a torrent of suppressive fire. What should my last words be? With a wild grin, I jumped out of cover and into the fray. Bullets came towards me from every direction, but I didn¡¯t care at this point. I needed exactly two things: my brain and my trigger finger, both of which I had. Falling unconscious isn¡¯t like falling asleep. You don¡¯t really know when you fall asleep, but when you go unconscious, you can feel when you cross ¡®the line.¡¯ I spotted one last gunman in my rapidly fading vision and managed to dink him in the head, just as I went under. Now that I¡¯ve done this in real life, I can die happy. Chapter 1: The Chickenlords Flawed Plan

Chapter 1: The Chickenlord¡¯s Flawed Plan

Part 1 - ¡°You must be Steele Johnson, please take a seat.¡± The receptionist said. Confused, I looked down at my body, surprised to see no wounds. ¡°Where am I?¡± I asked after sitting down on the sofa. ¡°Isn¡¯t it obvious? You¡¯re dead,¡± she replied dryly. ¡°Oh yeah, wasn¡¯t I shot to death?¡± The receptionist casually opened a file and read, ¡°Reason of death: Ballistic trauma to the left ventricle and right aorta resulting in brain death at E plus ~230 seconds.¡± Sitting back down, the receptionist went back to typing on her workstation. Whaddya know? There¡¯s an afterlife. As the minutes passed by, the only thing that could be heard was the resounding clack of her keyboard. At some point an eternity later, she said, ¡°Steele, the judges are ready for you.¡± She opened a door off to her left and I followed her through it to the brightly lit halls beyond. After walking for a bit, we arrived at two large double doors, which fed into a large room with three people in suits sitting at their three podiums. ¡°Welcome, human number 115 253 856 164, we welcome you to the afterlife, where we will judge your actions from your life granted to you by the divine being.¡± The judge sitting at the middle podium, opened the file handed to him by the receptionist, who turned around and exited from another set of doors on the right. The doors immediately vanished as they closed. ¡°Lifetime kills at an astounding high of twenty-four. Self defense. 7/10 rated life, nonbeliever in the holy one.¡± ¡°Well that makes this one a clear cut case for the first circle of hell.¡± What?! This doesn¡¯t sound fun. ¡°Seconded.¡± ¡°-Uhhh, do I get a say in thi-¡± ¡°Well then, it¡¯s final. Enjoy your eternal stay in the Fields of Asphodel,¡± he finished, cutting me off. Instantly, the ground surrounding me lit up with a blue flash and faded. I felt like I was being shoved through an infinitely small tube towards a light at the end of a white tunnel. I¡¯ve already died, so what now?! After a brief sense of vertigo, I was dumped into a foggy field with a bunch of creepy, ghostly flowers everywhere. These are really creepy ass flowers. I guess teleportation is a thing as well¡­ ¡¸That is the Asphodelus flower¡¹ my AI told me. How are you even here? I asked. ¡¸I am a part of your soul. I currently cannot access Core Processors in your head, so I¡¯m using Mind processing.¡¹ What even are the ¡®Fields of Asphodel?¡¯ ¡¸It¡¯s limbo, basically you were a decent person so you get suspended in eternal boredom.¡¹ Well isn¡¯t that fun? A second later, there was a brief glow above my head, followed by some kind of announcement. ¡°Steele Johnson, human number 115 253 856 164, intellect at 99th percentile, dexterity at 83rd percentile, strength at 58th percentile, lifetime kills of twenty-four, notable skills include sharpshooting, body guarding, CQB, MMA, swimming, skydiving, fencing, and finally, killing. The entire list is available in the details section of the product. Let the bidding begin at one hundred units of ¨€¨€¨€¨€¨€.¡± Huh? So much for eternal boredom¡­ ¡°One hundred!¡± ¡°One hundred and one!¡± ¡°One hundred and two!¡± ¡°One hundred and three!¡± This one upping happened for a while. ¡°Two hundred and fifty-three!¡± ¡°Five hundred!¡± ¡°Wow, zero chill¡­¡± some bidder commented. ¡°Five hundred going once! Five hundred going twice! Sold to Bidder 10784,¡± the announcer, well, announced. So, I¡¯m worth five hundred things? Yay? ¡°Next up is Z-¡± A blue light surrounded me and I was teleported out before he finished. After another unreasonably uncomfortable teleportation, I found myself face to face with an extremely unreasonably sized chicken. The gargantuan chicken stared me down as the light from teleportation disappeared. In an extremely deep voice, it spoke. ¡°Steele Johnson, I, the Chickenlord welcomes you!¡± ¡°Hello, nice to meet you Chickenlord. Was I just purchased?¡± ¡°Yes! The spiritual power in charge of your world decided that nonbelievers were taking up space, so he decided to auction off everyone.¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. ¡°Well then. Nice to know I¡¯m held in high regard! What can I do for you today?¡± ¡°My minion, we are going to take over existential plane AAXH-125 ¡ºEden¡»!¡± ¡°Nice!¡± I reply, ¡°What¡¯s the plan?¡± Wow, I¡¯m looking forwards to this! This¡¯ll be like total war or something! ¡°Simple! I¡¯ll spawn you in by hijacking a dungeon and you¡¯ll beat things up until you¡¯re strong enough to beat everything up and take over the world!¡± Oh. I have to do all the work alone. ¡°What if something¡¯s stronger than me?¡± ¡°They won¡¯t be! I will bless your new body so that you¡¯ll be able to take out enemies with ease!¡± That¡¯s still some pretty shifty logic... ¡°Sounds like a plan? May I make some requests for my body?¡± ¡°Go ahead,¡± the Chickenlord said magnanimously. ¡°Firstly, can I be a humanoid at least?¡± ¡°Of course, it¡¯s understandable that you aren¡¯t accustomed to being in the ultimate form,¡± he said, his wattle jiggling as he nodded, ¡°I¡¯ll let you create your own body.¡± That sounds reasonable¡­ I¡¯ve never created a body before though. Whatever the case, I¡¯ll need my beloved computer assistance. ¡°Also, can you add in the microchips my body had before I died?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll try, but I might not have enough ¨€¨€¨€¨€ to do it.¡± Hmmm, looks like money really can buy everything¡­ ¡°Just one question¡­¡± he said, tentatively. ¡°Go on¡­¡± ¡°What¡¯s a microchip?¡± ¡°Circuitry on a silicon wafer designed to create an integrated circuit.¡± ¡°Uhh¡­.¡± He looked at me in confusion. ¡°Do you think you could make it if I drew the blueprints for it?¡± ¡°Of course!¡± He said, smiling. ¡°I¡¯ll just need something to draw it on and I¡¯ll get started.¡± Part 2 - ¡°Whaddya mean, it¡¯s too complicated?¡± I demanded, furious. ¡°I mean, the blueprints took up an entire book you dolt!¡± ¡°This is just the first one! Hurry up and make it so that we can get onto the next one!¡± Seemingly an eternity later, we managed to finish all the chips, but then we ran into another problem. ¡°Due to all your troll ass enhancements, I¡¯m short on ¨€¨€¨€¨€, so I can¡¯t just incarnate you in your old body and have enough to spare to magically enhance it. You¡¯ll have to go in as a child of Eden.¡± ¡°But then, how will I kill things?¡± ¡°You¡¯ll have to use magic to kill things!¡± ¡°But I¡¯ve never used magic before¡­¡± ¡°That¡¯s okay¡­ you can learn against dungeon monsters¡­ hopefully¡­¡± ¡°That¡¯s wishful thinking!¡± ¡°WellsinceyouhavenomorequestionsI¡¯lljustspawnyouinnow¡± He said quickly. ¡°Wait, I have more questi-¡± I tried to object as I lost consciousness. The Chickenlord simply stared and waved. I entered this state where I could see the possibilities of how I could spawn in. A ¡®Character Creation¡¯ room, if you will. The budget was 435 ¨€¨€¨€¨€. My Bloodborne spell was ¡®Summon Chicken Golem.¡¯ Go figure. I spent the majority of the ¨€¨€¨€¨€ creating a human-elf hybrid, one of the few things I could afford in order to get the best strength and magic potential balance. Neither the strongest humanoid nor the most powerful mage, but it¡¯ll have to work. Well rounded-high utility is the way to go. I spent the rest of the ¨€¨€¨€¨€ adding enhancements such as increasing base muscle mass, intelligence, and magic affinity. Then I slammed my fist against the big green check mark and I blanked out again. ¡¸Welcome to Eden¡¹ Aipers commented sarcastically. I found myself standing in a small stone room. The torchlight caused shadows along the wall to flicker to some unknown rhythm. I tried to take a torch off the wall, but I found I couldn¡¯t. In fact, the fire didn¡¯t give off any heat. It was a cold fire. Must be that fancy magic stuff the Chickenlord was talking about. Anyways, let¡¯s give this magic stuff a try! ¡°SUMMON CHICKEN GOLEM!¡± I cried in a kind of high pitched voice. *** Nothing happened. Oh yeah, I¡¯m a kid! Looking down at my body, I found that it was significantly smaller than what I was used to. It was then, that I realized that I was naked. My elephant was gloriously hanging out between my legs. I¡¯ll have to fix that. There are clothes stores in dungeons, right? Maybe I can steal some off some monsters? This is a legitimate problem¡­ Whatever, I¡¯ll just concentrate on magic for now. ¡°SUMMON CHICKEN GOLEM!¡± I cried again, my high pitched voice echoing off the walls. *** Nothing happened. ¡¸Albert Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results¡¹ Aipers commented dryly. Are you trying to say something? I asked. ¡¸Try a different pitch¡¹ she commented helpfully. ¡°SOOMMON CHACKON G-O-LOM¡± I yelled out, this time my voice coming out significantly lower. *** Nothing happened. I tried different pitches, different yelling positions, yelling it with a stick in my hand, swish and flickering, and literally everything. Eventually, my yelling drew a little green creature to me. This must be the legendary goblin that populates dungeons! In his right hand, he appeared to be holding a shank. Seeing as I was unarmed, he rushed at me. I redirected his attack to the left and retaliated with a blow to the jaw. Unfortunately, I wasn¡¯t used to using my new body, so when I took a step forward, I tripped and fell flat on my face. ¡¸Adjusting muscle-memory for new body.¡¹ Immediately, I found it a lot easier to move. Just like a mini version of big-me. I quickly got up and round-house kicked the bastard across the face. It flew through the air and slid across the ground for half a second before coming to a stop. Its eyelid twitched slightly as it got angry. How surprisingly durable. It got up in a rage and charged again. In another lunge, it shot forward and grazed my arm with its dirty shank. In a smooth movement, I managed to disarm the little bastard and get behind him. The shank flew off, finally coming to a stop a few meters away. After I managed to get my arm around its neck, I executed a rear naked choke on it. Once I got my second arm behind its head, it was over in seconds. Running over, I picked up its shank and stabbed it into the unconscious goblin¡¯s eye. The goblin turned to light and vanished, leaving behind its loincloth and shank. I wonder if other monsters drop better clothes. I¡¯ll have to see, but I¡¯m not wearing that loincloth. Maybe they¡¯ll be more powerful as well. What fun! As I was pondering this, I ran into another goblin. Now that I had a shank, the creature seemed apprehensive, rather than totally aggressive like the last one. Not that I cared. I just killed it and took its shank. Now I have two shanks. ¡°SUMMON GOLEM!¡± *** Nothing happened. Wow, what a striptease. I supposedly get overpowered as fuck magic, but I can¡¯t even use it. ¡¸Define, ¡®overpowered as fuck¡¯¡¹ I dunno, I guess Kyle would be jealous? ¡¸So your wine collection is ¡®overpowered as fuck?¡¯¡¹ Not anymore¡­ I left it to him in my will. After a bit more walking, I arrived at a well-lit stairwell. I climbed down into a lower floor. The most immediately noticeable feature was how it had plants. Seconds later, my stomach started making the rumblies. Are these plants even edible? One bush had some red berries. I picked one off and tasted it apprehensively. It tasted pretty sweet, additionally, I didn¡¯t die so in no time at all I had picked the bush clean and eaten my fill. Now full, I continued my journey to¡­ well, uhhh somewhere. Something prickled my ear at the edge of my hearing. I stopped and listened harder, but I couldn¡¯t really figure out what it was. Eventually, it became a dull echoing buzz. Small insects flew all around me, but strangely enough, none of them touched me. Some came extremely close to me and I swatted at them, but I couldn¡¯t hit any. They simply dodged and rolled too quickly. Suddenly, I smelled smoke. It was a strong acrid smell and I tried blocking it out, but my eyes watered and I gasped at the repugnant smell. Within the space of a single second, the air became cold. Who did that? I looked around but I didn¡¯t see anything nearby. I hunched down and wrapped my hands around my legs, but it didn¡¯t do much against the extreme cold. As my extremities got colder, I rubbed them to heat them up. Insects buzzed around me and I started sweating. Sweating of all things. In this blizzard temperature! A goblin came up, seemingly unaffected by the cold or the insects. Several other goblins followed in its wake. I walked up with its pointed shard of metal and stabbed me. A trickle of blood ran down my arm. ¡¸Steele, listen up, you are hallucinating, I think. The cold and the insects aren¡¯t real. You must kill the goblins immediately or your chances of survival decrease to zero.¡¹ Huh. If I don¡¯t think it exists, will it hurt? I forced myself to stand up in the frost covered stones and focused on winning the fight. So the cold isn¡¯t real? It sure feels real. The goblin¡¯s guard relaxed for a second as it watched an orb of blood hit the ground. I moved like a bolt of lightning and embedded the iron shard into its throat. The other two goblins jumped backwards in surprise. One of them was holding a sword and the other a mace. Their attacks were crude and unsophisticated. I repelled them with ease and ended their miserable existences. Suddenly, I felt extremely lightheaded. Unable to stand for any longer, I fell over and lost consciousness. Chapter 2: Daybreak in Eden

Chapter 2: Daybreak in Eden

Part 1 of 1 :/ ¡°Hey, wake up, sleepy head!¡± a girl¡¯s voice said softly. My eyes snapped open instantly. I yawned and woke up. I rubbed my eyes tiredly and tried to get up, however, gravity said no¡­ Oh well, I didn¡¯t plan on getting up anyways. I continued to lie in bed for a few seconds before I came to the realization that Charlotte was looking at me worriedly. I looked around me, but something seemed a bit off. Now that I think of it, I died and talked to a giant chicken, didn¡¯t I? Pfft, I¡¯m home. What a dream. I mean, what kind of god would take on the form of a chicken? That¡¯s completely ridiculous. ¡°Are you okay?¡± Charlotte asked. ¡°You look sick.¡± ¡°I¡¯m completely fine,¡± I replied. ¡°We¡¯ve got a busy day ahead of us!¡± ¡°Alright then,¡± she said, clearly not convinced. ¡°I was just contemplating chickens, no biggie.¡± ¡°Now I¡¯m curious¡­¡± ¡°Nothing much, I just got shot and killed, where I went to an afterlife. Then I was sold to a gigantic chicken who wanted me to take over a world.¡± ¡°Sounds exactly like something you¡¯d think about,¡± she remarked, rolling her eyes. ¡°Besides, how would you get shot in this day and age? Crime and murder are almost inexistent in the first world now!¡± ¡°You¡¯re also one of the top players of ¡®Battlefield: Vanguard¡¯ I don¡¯t think anyone could kill you if they tried.¡± ¡°Pfft, anyone could kill me if they had the jump.¡± I threw the covers off and jumped out of bed. After I dug out two random articles of clothing, I put them on and went to the kitchen. ¡°What the hell, Steele! What the fuck are you wearing?¡± ¡°It¡¯s an orange shirt and green shorts¡­ what¡¯s wrong with it?¡± ¡°You can¡¯t go outside wearing that! It¡¯s ugly!¡± I looked down at my clothes. They don¡¯t look really ugly¡­ but then, I¡¯m pretty bad at judging beauty. ¡°I never thought these would need to be burned¡­ they look fine to me.¡± ¡°Individually they¡¯re fine, but those two colors clash!¡± ¡°It¡¯s okay. No one will notice.¡± I said, patting her head. ¡°EVERYONE will notice! That¡¯s dull orange and bright green you¡¯re wearing, people will go blind from the fugliness!¡± ¡°Doubt,¡± I shrugged. ¡°You just watch,¡± she said smugly. Sighing, I went back and found a green shirt and put it on. Quite frankly, it didn¡¯t look or feel any different. I got a pancake and started pouring syrup on it. A small pool of the golden liquid started gathering around the fluffy pancake. On the TV, an advertisement for orange juice was panning over a few ugly orange trees. ¡°Ha, those are ugly trees! They¡¯re orange and green! Ha, it¡¯s just further proof that nature sucks, haha! Can¡¯t even prevent clashing colors! ¡°I think it¡¯s kinda pretty with the white flowers though¡­¡± Charlotte remarked. ¡°...¡± Life is confusing. Later that day, while I was working on an energy equation at my lab, I found myself thinking that it was too easy. It was as if I already knew the answer to the problem. In fact, I did! I had the entire proof in my head. I reached back into my memory, but I couldn¡¯t quite remember anywhere I saw it before. This shouldn¡¯t have been anywhere before either¡­ we got these results from the research wing today. Additionally, it feels like I¡¯m missing a piece of me. Whatever, the equation was probably part of some similar experiment in the experiments of year 2092 anomaly series. I jumped up from my seat as a loud, shrill ring pierced through the silence of my office space. I looked down at my phone in alarm. I don¡¯t remember setting my ringtone to this crap¡­ God dammit, Josh probably changed it for some shitty prank or something. I sighed in annoyance and answered the call. ¡°Hello, who is it?¡± ¡°Hello, is this Mister Anders-,¡± a monotone voice said. ¡°Sorry, wrong number,¡± I interrupted as I hung up. God dammit, random people calling. Probably some telemarketer from the East claiming to be from Macrohard or Peach something. Leave me alone, god dammit, I know how to get rid of viruses, I wasn¡¯t born yesterday. I was born the day before yesterday. I focused my mind and drove out the competing squabbling in order to finish writing the proof. When I finished, I took it to the research wing, where I handed it to Lindsey Stephens, the research department head. ¡°I swear I¡¯ve seen this problem before,¡± I said to her. ¡°It was like the proof was in my memory or something.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯m sorry you¡¯re so smart proofs just walk into your memory,¡± she answered sarcastically. I frowned. God dammit, she can¡¯t take a hint. ¡°Well, if you feel so strongly about it, I guess I could take a look at past proofs we¡¯ve had you solve¡­¡± I sighed as she handed me another folder, this time almost empty. I¡¯m not paid enough to do this. Well, actually I am. It¡¯s still annoying though. I popped open the folder and looked through the details. ¡°God dammit, I¡¯ve seen this one too.¡± ¡°Oh, really¡­ did someone eat too many mushrooms?¡± she asked sarcastically. Why is everything she says sarcastic? ¡°No, I don¡¯t eat psychedelic mushrooms; second of all, the answer is FORTY THREE FUCKING DEGREES. I¡¯ve seen this before, I swear!¡± ¡°Is this some kind of joke?¡± she muttered. ¡°You just solved, in twelve seconds, a problem that the entire research division couldn¡¯t make heads or tails of for half a month. By looking at only the first page, no less.¡± I stopped for a second. ¡°Wait, how do you know it¡¯s the correct answer?¡± ¡°We know it¡¯s between 40.5 and 44.5 degrees, so your answer makes sense. Why? Did you just guess a number?¡± ¡°Of course not, I¡¯ve seen this shit before!¡± I tried to explain exasperatedly. ¡°No way you saw it here then, I personally work on the dilation experiments and this one was nothing like anything we had you do before.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t do research problems anywhere else. I swear you¡¯ve sent me a problem about the curve of light near light speed in an instantiation field before! How do you forget about doing research about post time dilation effects on photon wave curve in the fucking huge ass field collider?¡± ¡°Steele, we installed the Camery Adam¡¯s Field Collider 35 days ago. This was the first time we used it. Ever.¡± With this new revelation, I massaged my temples and sighed. ¡°Maybe I do need to start taking some drugs¡­ Whatever, I need to go back to sleep.¡± ¡°Wait, you can¡¯t just give me the answer, we need a proof!¡± ¡°Screw that, I¡¯ll do that when I wake up again.¡± ¡°At least give us the unrounded answer then¡­¡± ¡°Forty two and nine hundred fourteen thousandths plus thirty-one over eight hundred and seven thousand, four hundred thirty-three times pi.¡± ¡°You did all that in your head?¡± she asked incredulously. ¡°Of course not. As I was saying, I¡¯ve done this problem before. I just happen to remember the answer.¡± She scowled disapprovingly at me. ¡°You should take your nap,¡± she suggested. ¡°Yeah, yeah, I¡¯ll get out of your hair.¡± Suddenly, my stomach made the rumblies. The rumblies that only a mozzarella cheese stick would satisfy. I know a good mozzarella cheese stick place! Immediately, I departed in noble pursuit of my mozzarella cheese stick. I followed a well familiar sidewalk to a bakery. I¡¯ve certainly been here before. I come here at least three times a week. I walked into the small bakery. The air inside was slightly warmer than outside and it had the pleasant fragrance of pastries. I approached the counter where they had a mozzarella cheese stick for me. Heh, I guess I come here way too often. The lady gave me a smile as she handed me the bag and the receipt. It wasn¡¯t really a friendly smile, in a sense¡­ more like the smile you give to special people. There¡¯s nothing wrong with eating only mozzarella cheese sticks. Mozzarella cheese sticks are life. I handed her my credit card and 1.3 resource points were deducted off along with a 0.1 point tip. I always leave a tip when they have cheese sticks waiting. Waiting is so last century. Wonder what the smile is for then. Whatever, she¡¯s probably a non-believer in mozzarella cheese sticks. It¡¯s the only rational explanation. With a bag of mozzarella cheese sticks under my arm, I headed back to my apartment. As I got home, a girl with dirty blonde hair ran up to me. ¡°Steele! How was your day today?¡± she asked. ¡°About to be a whole lot better,¡± I said as I patted my bag. ¡°That¡¯s good to hear,¡± she said, smiling as she saw the bag. ¡°That party last night was pretty fun!¡± ¡°I know, right?¡± Wait, what party? Aipers, what party is she talking about?You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Still no reply huh. What party? C¡¯mon, Aipers, talk to me! ¡°It was so great Steele; I still can¡¯t believe you proposed like that! It was so cute!¡± She said, hugging me. Wut. How come she didn¡¯t bring this up this morning? This literally makes no sense at all. Plus, how come she knows that but I don¡¯t? I must have hit my head in my sleep or something. I don¡¯t remember drinking bottles of Nyquil either. What the actual hell is going on? C¡¯mon Aipers, I need you. What¡¯s going on? ¡°Are you okay, Steele?¡± Charlotte asked worriedly. ¡°I don¡¯t even know anymore¡­¡± I mutter under my breath. Somehow, she heard me. ¡°Fight me,¡± she bellowed, grinning like a wolf. ¡°It¡¯ll cheer you up for sure!¡± ¡°You won¡¯t win though, a support character isn¡¯t going to beat a front liner...¡± I said skeptically. ¡°Not even with a 60% strength penalty?¡± she asked. ¡°I suppose if you¡¯re scared then¡­¡± ¡°Well, if you insist,¡± I replied. ¡°I¡¯m looking forward to fighting the new martial art memories you got last week.¡± she said, smiling. She practically dragged me into her room where she put a headset on and laid down. I laid down on the bed and put on the headset. After logging in, it disconnects me from my body and reattaches my brain input/output to the device, brilliantly displayed on a high tech scene colloquially known as ¡®the loading bar.¡¯ As soon as I enter the game, I begin to repeatedly receive invites to party ¡®gg ezpz.¡¯ I accept and enter the lobby. She starts a private server and we are dumped into character selection. We both select the well-rounded one for our respective genders, aka the average human. Using console commands, I drop my physical strength down to 40%. Overpowering strength is unnecessary to win a fight. Nc_game start 1 One second later, the game starts and we materialize in a fight ring. ¡°Ready or not, here I come!¡± She calls before moving forward. For a few awkward seconds, I attempt to dodge with my now frail strength, but I manage it in the end. When I finally got used to the weakened body, it got a lot easier. It was as if a shroud had been thrown off of me. Suddenly, her punches stopped landing. It was like fighting a child. Every attack from her was easily predictable. The physical difference, even with a 60% reduction wasn¡¯t as large as expected. It was probably because sexual dimorphism settings reduce her strength by 20% in exchange for speed. Her lower body was a lot stronger than mine in this current state. Her upper body was much closer, in comparison. Her arms were still stronger, but by my estimations, only 33% at the most. Seeing as her attacks stopped landing, she tried to bear hug me. How exactly, do you escape from someone who is stronger and faster than you? As she moved in, I quickly landed a blow on the corner of her jaw before backing off. Unfortunately, it did nothing. Cuz I¡¯m the strongest person on the planet right now. She tried to grab me, but I managed to slip out somehow. Immediately, I changed targets. I put all the force I could possibly muster into a single punch as she turned towards me again. With a light crunch, her collarbone broke. At 12% maximum local pain, however, that didn¡¯t really do anything. The pain from that would be largely ignorable. Before I could back off however, she caught my arm, and I realized with horror that she had willingly walked into the attack for an opportunity to catch me. Half a second later, I found myself reeling from a hit to my gut. It didn¡¯t hurt though, just a ¡®dazed¡¯ state simulation from getting hit at 40% reduced stats. I hit the ground and tripped backwards. By forcing more momentum backwards, I managed to complete a roll and end up back on my feet. Without even looking, I jumped back and checked for a blow to the head. I managed to mostly block off her follow up blow, but my arms went numb from the shock. Being a support, she didn¡¯t have any extremely specialized fighting styles; however, she was still extremely crafty. I have to be extremely careful, since she has the strength advantage, if she were to get me into a submission hold, it would be game. The only reason I¡¯m even good at martial arts is because throughout my early life, I had wandered the world with my good friend Kyle and we roofied martial arts masters from the four corners of the earth. Well, if a sphere can have corners anyways. While they were out, we would connect the memory logger and take their memories. Some allowed us to copy off memories for other memories, but the vast majority needed coercing. Sleep-coercing. We managed to get all kinds of experts! For instance, for the close combat mastery, we interviewed prison felons, MMA masters, karate black belts, 11th dan judo kiddos, dragon warriors, hitmen etc. All we had to do was either get them to cooperate or roofie them, then copy off their memories and use AI: EVE to cut out all the useless parts like their emotions, sentimental attachments and all that mushy gushy stuff. I couldn¡¯t have done it without Kyle¡­ I mean, he had the most ingenious ways of smuggling rohypnol and carrying out all these extractions. For instance, there was this Dough-joe in Japan where they have this weird sword fighting style called Can-Dough. This lady refused to let us put a large black webby device on her head so we came back around midnight, pumped sleeping gas into her AC, melted her door handle off and then copied her memories. I still don¡¯t know where he gets sleeping gas, thermite, guns or Tasers in practically every country. Yep, without my muscle memory augments, I would have to spend unrealistic amounts of time just to learn all the movements. With practiced efficiency, I a feigned an all-in, but instead, stepped back to execute a spinning hook kick. I personally liked this combo because of how quickly you could execute the surprise kick. The kick, as expected, caught her off guard and dazed her. I didn¡¯t let the opportunity slip. Fate forsakes those who let opportunities slip. I was about to finish it with an uppercut to the jaw, but her hand shot out suddenly and caught my arm. Again. God dammit, we spar too much. She can predict what I¡¯ll do and catch me twice in a match? Getting caught is my least favorite thing to do. Her dazed expression had been replaced by the cold smile of a predator. ¡°That¡¯s not good.¡± Inspire has knocked out Apex, Red team victory! - ¡°Hah¡­. Crafty little thing,¡± I muttered while smiling at her after we took off our Neurogear. ¡°That was fun! Let¡¯s do that again sometime.¡± ¡°Ahgred,¡± I replied as I took a bite out of a mozzarella cheese stick. By now, I was relatively certain this was a dream. I mean, my AI doesn¡¯t respond, the order of events makes no sense. Why would Charlotte only bring up my proposal at the end of the day? Why don¡¯t I remember the event? Why do I remember doing the problems at the lab? ¡°Emergency Command, run Advanced Diagnostics.¡± The emergency command series were commands that used a backup mechanism to ensure that emergency procedures could be executed in the AI- networked devices in my body even with partial or complete loss of the brain. ¡¸Error: Bridge device failed to respond to ICMP request.¡¹ ¡¸Bridge has rebooted.¡¹ ¡¸Error: Information received from brain severely corrupted. Recovery of received information is impossible.¡¹ ¡¸12 known hallucinogens detected in bloodstream.¡¹ Huh? Hallucinogen? It must have been the berries, I thought, remembering back to the bushes laden with the red fruit. Certainly not the best choice I¡¯ve ever made. ¡¸Toxin levels have dropped below 1% fatal levels, complete brain reboot is possible.¡¹ I should probably wake up before I get skewered by something. ¡°Emergency Command, begin the restart sequence.¡± My mind went blank for a second. ¡¸Emergency reboot complete. Hallucinogen concentration estimated 0.8% of fatal concentration. (1522) attempts to suppress effects: 1522 Failures. Down time estimated at approximately 6 hours.¡¹ Without warning, a very loud familiar voice shouted into my head, ¡°As stated in your contract, Section II, part B, your capture and status as a slave is grounds for termination of the contract. As per Section IV, I have evoked the failure clause and you have been sold to Fast-¨€¨€¨€¨€. Further information on this status will be sent to you at a later time. You have been permanently excommunicated from the Chickenlord Church. This is non-negotiable and irreversible. I wish you a horrible day and an even worse life, Sincerely, the Chickenlord¡¯s attorney. P.S. You have the record for the quickest failure. Ever.¡± Huh? The fuck? You underestimate my escape skills. Without warning, another voice appeared in my head, ¡°Hello Steele Johnson, this is Daisy, a representative of Fast-¨€¨€¨€¨€. You have been sold to Fast-¨€¨€¨€¨€ for a total of 818 ¨€¨€¨€¨€. Thus, in accordance with our code of operations, you will gain your freedom upon sacrificing 1636 ¨€¨€¨€¨€¡¯s worth of life force. In your current location, that is worth exactly 103 human lives. Killing 103 humans or obtaining an equivalent amount of life force will suffice. You will not gain EXP from absorbed life force while you have not paid your loan. I wish you luck on the battlefield.¡± Huh? A human¡¯s life force is only worth 12 ¨€¨€¨€¨€s?! ¨€¨€¨€¨€s must be worth a lot! Either that or there¡¯s a large deduction off the cost for greater profit margins. But still, I¡¯m worth 103 humans? A hundred error messages scrolled past as Aipers tried to reconstruct my memory. Looking around, I noticed that I was captured exactly as the Chickenlord¡¯s attorney had claimed. Gods have attorneys. The more you know. It didn¡¯t really shock or surprise me, considering I had already expected something along the lines of this. I appeared to be in some kind of dull gray metal cage which shook violently as it traversed slowly over a decrepit dirt road. Around me, people with light metallic armor and assorted weapons walked alongside the cage. I looked around and counted fourteen of them. Two horses were up front pulling the contraption and two of the people seemed to be talking in a foreign language. Go figure, people in a different world don¡¯t speak English. ¡°Not much chance to escape even if I did make it out of the cage.¡± I sighed. Who even walks around with a cage randomly lying around? How did this happen? My hands were bound in front of me in leather handcuffs and there seemed to be some kind of collar around my neck. As much as I¡¯d like to stay for the kinky stuff, I hope I get to leave soon. Exactly as I expected, my shanks were gone. In fact, I seem to be left with nothing but my mind. I tried to stand up, but I found that I couldn¡¯t. My legs were bound to rings at the bottom of the cart. This has to be overkill... I examined the lock in front of me to pass the time, but much to my surprise, it was just some metal bars with a lock on it. The existence of only one lock surprised me. In fact, I wouldn¡¯t have been surprised if there were two or more, really. The lock seemed rather rudimentary, but I lacked materials of any sort to pick it. Not that it would have helped to have something. I¡¯d probably just get skewered if I tried to escape. I looked around and examined the faces of my captors. All I found was weariness and apathy. Nothing I say would probably guilt trip them. They probably wouldn¡¯t respond to sobbing at all. I laid down and contemplated the meaning of life. What is the meaning of my life? Probably to participate in an experiment or something and then to die. The objective of me living is to die. Huh. Well, I¡¯m not afraid of death. I¡¯ve already died. This world means nothing to me. After all, the only thing that mattered was my past life, but Charlotte was gone. Not because she had died, but rather because I had. Lady luck had given me the middle finger. Nothing I could have done about it. Actually, I could have worn a Class-IV armor plate. In a world with 0.1 homicides per 100 000, I had found a way to get killed. There was definitely a hole in my heart, knowing that I¡¯d never see her again, but at least she was okay. There was no way in hell the last few terrorists would have found a way to kill her. I can worry about that later though; I need to find a way out of this predicament first. Can I even escape this? What would I do if I could? I would only be able to survive. I don¡¯t really have any goals to speak of. Surviving is kinda hard actually as well, considering I don¡¯t speak their language or know their customs. This is the part where I magically get some kind of way to speak with the local population, right? RIGHT? Some magic amulet or ring that lets me speak and write the language or something? Pfft, as if. Wait, maybe I can relax as a slave¡­ I mean, the conditions would need to be set up and adjusted, but in the end, I should theoretically have at least a chance of success. Even if I did escape, I don¡¯t know the way back to the dungeon... A small growl escaped my stomach. Looks like I¡¯m hungry again. It was hunger that got me into this mess in the first place¡­ I hit my palm on the floor of the cart repeatedly and pointed at my mouth. A guy to my side said something angrily and whacked the cage with his spear. A few of them rolled their eyes and continued walking. Looks like I¡¯m not getting food. Well, fuck you too. I laid down again and tried to take a nap. Unfortunately, we had already entered a city and the loud clamor of people around me and the rude bumping of the cart repeatedly woke me up. The activities around me were exactly what you would expect from a rural urban district. Crystals and glass balls exchanged hands with multi-colored coins. Weird robed people chanted and sang to fields and children. A man seemed to be selling sticks. Ya know, all the normal stuff. The cart drew quite a lot of attention from the people around. A young girl pulled an older woman¡¯s skirt and said what sounded like, ¡°mah mah, ridgis pedeh mix shin alvie smin,¡± before pointing at me. People have done studies in the past about different languages on Earth. They found that children will usually refer to their maternal units as some kind of soft consonant followed by, usually the ¡®ah¡¯ or something to that effect. Someone told me this, but I can¡¯t really remember where. Thus, I can conclude that the girl was holding onto likely a mother, aunt or something along those lines. I can certainly make these dickheads who captured me have a miserable time. I¡¯ve also got nothing better to do¡­ ¡¸You want to create enmity between the townsfolk and your capturers? ¡¹ Aipers asked. Yep. It¡¯ll be fun! Plus, I¡¯ve got nothing to lose. In an extremely short time, I had a plan of attack. Not all battles are won with physical strength. Within seconds, I was sniffling and gently sobbing. A fat tear rolled down my cheek, compliments of Aipers. A few more of the villagers started looking in my direction. I didn¡¯t know their entire language, but I didn¡¯t need to. I had one word. With a raptor screech carrying the power of a thousand suns, I howled to the wind in a choked back cry. ¡°Maaah Mahhh¡± I cried. Inwardly, I was holding back a laugh at my performance. Almost every eye in the street stared in surprise at my raptor screech. I coughed violently, intentionally ¡®accidentally¡¯ spraying my spit all over the escort with the spear. Immediately, his expression of annoyance turned to confusion and then rage. I could barely suppress my glee at succeeding in my provocation. He flipped his spear and slammed it into my head with the butt of the weapon, while yelling some form of insult. Aipers reduced the pain to 12%, so it barely hurt. Taking the momentum from the blow, I slammed my face into the ground on the other side as naturally as I could. I heard a sickening crunch as my nose broke. Simultaneously, I bit my tongue, causing blood to flow into my mouth. Immediately, I fell into a coughing ¡®fit¡¯ while half crying. Blood particles and spit flew everywhere. I was half aware of blood running down my nose and covering half my face. As I continued my desperate cries, I found that the onlooker¡¯s expressions had turned from apathy to utter disdain and disgust. Uncomfortable from the pressure of the crowds, a few of the escorts brandished their weapons. The angry spear-wielder hit me with the butt of his weapon again. I cut my cry off short and pretended to fall down, losing consciousness. From my vantage point, I observed a woman with a child run up in front of the caravan and publicly scold them. The group, sensing the immediate danger from the crowds around them, didn¡¯t dare make a move against her. The people in the crowd seemed to begin spitting and throwing rocks at the escorts. Clearly there was quite a bit of enmity before I even got here. For this to escalate at this speed, the townies and my escorts must be opposing factions or something. Minutes later, the town guard arrived and the townspeople were herded out of the area. One of my escorts were interrogated and threatened by a few of the guards before he took out a few gold coins and handed them to a large burly man spearheading the guards. The man harrumphed and the guards made their exit. Slowly, we advanced again. As we went deeper into the city, stone buildings started appearing at some point. The road got smoother too. Although it was still only a cobblestone road, it was better than the dirt road before. Eventually, we reached a large building. The cage was opened, and my ¡®unconscious body¡¯ was carried into the building. Inside, there seemed to be an argument between one of my captives and a sorta big, but mostly medium sized guy with a mullet and a large stache. After a while of bickering, they seemed to make up and shake hands. A small sack was handed to my black haired captive before he nodded with satisfaction and left with my other captors. I was handed to a bear of a man who picked me up with one hand and brought me up a flight of stairs and through a dirty hallway. I was dropped into a room with around twenty bored children about my age. They all looked pretty clean, but the floor was pretty nasty. Bits of garbage and other assorted worthless shit were strewn along the ground. As soon as the man left, everyone seemed to approach me in a wave. Someone poked my ears. I rate this hotel zero stars. Chapter 3: Grand Tescape Apedestrian V

Chapter 3: Great Tescape Apedestrian V

From my ear, the feeling of being touched spread. It wasn¡¯t really a touch in the sense of a grope, but rather, it was more of a getting ¡®wrapped by a blanket¡¯ kind of feel. All of a sudden, I felt pins and needles across my body. Didn¡¯t really hurt too terribly much though, even without pain reduction. After a second, it vanished and was replaced by a warm, fuzzy feeling. ¡¸Pain signals no longer detected. Pain reduction protocol exiting.¡¹ The borderline numb feeling I get with pain reduction on, vanished. With a new sense of curiosity, I opened my eyes fully. A teenaged boy looked down at me threateningly. He said something in the doohickey language everyone else was using. ¡°Huh?¡± I asked apathetically. He instantly slapped me across the face and said it again, louder. Not understanding, I copied him by slapping him and repeating his words rather badly. Some of the others in the room began to snicker. He began to yell furiously and beat me. I didn¡¯t bother blocking any of his attacks. They were kinda pathetic, to be perfectly honest. I monotonously chanted his words back to him, but that just seemed to make him even angrier. He wrapped his hands around my neck and started to choke. I made a choking noise and his face seemed to light up instantly. He wants me to make choking noises, obviously. How could I have missed such a thing? Immediately, I began to make extremely loud, exaggerated choking noises. Just then, Mullet man and the burly guy walked in again. Immediately, the teenager let go and backed off. Not yet had my fill, I decided to antagonize him a bit further. I made a show of trying to gasp in air, but failing before letting out all the air in my lungs and lying still. Maybe if I play my cards right, I can escape! Aipers, run the Possum macro! ¡¸Decreasing brain activity to 10% and disabling all skeletal - muscle systems. Dropping heart rate to 6 beats/minute. Activating manual control on diaphragm, one breath/minute.¡¹ In my Possum macro, decreasing brain activity to 10% didn¡¯t physically mean use only 10% of the brain, but rather, run the brain at a 10x lower tickrate, or fps if you will. Through my eyes, I saw the world as a time lapse while Aipers maintained careful and precise control over my vitals. Basically, the teenager got the shit beaten out of him quite literally and the room went into a panic. Various glowing occurred. I was left on a table somewhere. As soon as I was sure that I was alone, I resuscitated my oxygen-starved body. End Possum macro. ¡¸Returning bodily settings to normal.¡¹ Sadly, I couldn¡¯t move immediately after using the Possum macro. I breathed extremely quickly and manually raised my heartbeat to 220 beats per minute to restore power to my limbs as soon as possible. Within a full minute, I was back to normal. Unfortunately for me, Mullet man had just turned the corner and saw me get up. Obviously, I made a run for it. Unfortunately, Mullet Man seemed to have predicted what was about to happen. Cuz he instantly raised the alarm. I tried to move quickly, but a wave of bodies forged from pure oppression tried to stop me and I had to resort to juking tactics to escape the flood of pursuers. With the strength of two midgets and the screech of almost one Neal, I managed to escape the net of people. I sprinted harder than I had ever sprinted in my life and made an all-out effort to get outside. Bad news for me though, was that I was using a tiny body. Yeah, because every jail breaker dreams of having one¡­ Until they have one. Mullet Man was yelling again. I could already hear footsteps all around me raping the floor with their incessant pounding as fat and burly men alike flooded the halls. Using my microchip enhanced ears; my AI co-processors could work out exactly where each of my pursuers was located. I ducked around corners, hid in rooms, and hung on rafters in order to make my way to the side staircase. A man was at the staircase, but that couldn¡¯t stop me. In a burst of strength, I leapt over a railing and slid down the handrail. The man bellowed out something. Once I made it to the ground floor, I headed in the opposite direction of the front entrance and went back up to the second floor via the laundry chute. With my location unknown, I was able to make it to a supply closet for a razor, a rope, a hammer, and a lead doorstop undetected. I cut a hole in the upper seam of my shirt, broke off the handle and hid the razorblade there. I might need it for lock picking or stabbing or something. Working with extremely limited time, I tied the hammer to the rope and headed to the central staircase. Once I got there, I found myself overlooking half a dozen security personnel and an extremely angry Mullet Man. I took the doorstop and threw it at the window to the right of the door. As the doorstop hit the window, it broke through and created a spider web of cracks. I picked up my makeshift grappling hook and whirled it around expertly before sending it flying at the chandelier, where it wrapped around one of the arms satisfactorily. I grabbed the rope and jumped, whooping like an Indian in old last century film.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The security agency tried to intercept me. But it was too late! With a maniacal, high pitched screech of a laugh, I smashed my way through the already weakened window. Sadly, I found myself ambushed by another half a dozen security agency members waiting outside that tackled me and held me down. Mullet Man slowly approached me, amidst two dozen onlookers. Mullet Man was clapping very slowly. With every step he took, I could sense my impending doom draw closer. I thrashed about wildly, drawing upon the legendary strength of three midgets, but alas, all was for naught. With no path of escape remaining, I let out a screech of despair before falling silent, defeated by the flesh heap of bodies that surrounded me. The Mullet man exclaimed some stuff happily. They put me in heavy security this time. Long story short, I was completely tied up and thrown in a small, padded room with a single barred window. My legs were connected to a massive iron ball. It looked pretty heavy. The stupid little shits forgot to search me though. I sat still and bided my time. Three hours after I was so rudely not given dinner, when all through the Slave House, no one was stirring, not even a mouse; I pulled the razor blade hidden in the upper seam of my shirt with my teeth and began sawing at the ropes at my hands. Two hours later, my hands were free. Ten minutes after that, my legs were free. The door to my room wasn¡¯t even locked, stupid animals. With a confident stride, I stepped forward¡­ right into a net that suspended me five feet in the air. Sighing in annoyance, I took my razor and started cutting. Another hour later, I was free once more. Now wary of traps, I progressed slowly. There were many traps, almost all of which I would not have been able to detect without Aipers. Some undisclosed amount of time later, I found myself standing in front of the door. I found it extremely dubious that I hadn¡¯t encountered even a single guard the entire time. They were probably all waiting somewhere in a stupid ambush. All of a sudden, something tickled my ear; a sound at the corner of my hearing ability. Unfortunately, there was too much background noise to clearly distinguish it. Useless Chickenlord. Should have told me those berries were dangerous. Fuck his mother. The sound tickled my ear again, but I couldn¡¯t really determine what it was. The sound of my heartbeat drowned it out. Anyways, fuck the door. The door¡¯s probably an ambush. I picked up a bench with all my might, and carried it to the side of the building where I threw it through a window. I nodded at my handiwork, stepped through the broken glass and onto the gravel. My feet bled a bit, but that didn¡¯t matter. Once again, something unanticipated happened. My entire body suddenly froze up like I was hit by a Taser. My mind went completely blank for a second before Aipers initiated the Pain Reduction Protocol. Shakily, I got up and advanced. Then the thought struck me. Why not use Aipers Autopilot? I had been so mentally disabled from the jolt that the thought hadn¡¯t even come across my mind. Initiate autopilot. Use current objectives: escape from the slave house, increase distance. Like my body had a will of its own, I began moving. Not quickly, but it was moving. Maybe it would be more accurate to describe it as hobbling, really. Even with Aiper¡¯s control, my muscles wouldn¡¯t obey. With a massive surge of willpower, I imagined myself wearing a swagging pro ¡®Obey¡¯ cap. My hobbling speed increased a bit. Unfortunately, all my input facilities were thoroughly messed up at this point. I couldn¡¯t see shit. I couldn¡¯t hear shit. I could feel myself burning. I could taste fire. I probably smelled like shit. At some point in time, I realized I was on the ground. Based on my last known location and heading, I began rolling towards freedom. It¡¯s the above ground railroad. Choo choo! All aboard the freedom hype train! Chugga chugga chugga~~~ With enough effort, anything¡¯s possible! --------- Sometime later, I woke up in a straitjacket. I quickly found that all my limbs had been secured by a secondary mechanism and I was gagged. My body had been completely immobilized. I guess that means no more razor blade. In fact, I couldn¡¯t even twist my head. Isn¡¯t this a tiny bit overkill? To be quite honest, escaping a straitjacket is actually quite easy. Not so much if you can¡¯t move your¡­ anything. Ha! Bet! I¡¯ll find a way! A few minutes later, my suspicions were confirmed. I couldn¡¯t move anything. They even weighed down my dick with a sandbag. Since it was like, dangling, it wasn¡¯t as if it was squished or anything. I just couldn¡¯t move it if I wanted to. You know what? I¡¯ve always had that list of YouTube videos that I want to watch, but never had time to. I¡¯d never thought that I¡¯d be in the equivalent of ¡®solitary confinement¡¯ before I had a chance to watch them. Set objective, escape if possible. ¡¸Objective set.¡¹ Aipers, dedicate remaining computational resources to deciphering their hillbilly speak. Learning how to speak a word of their language should be prioritized three times that of learning how to write it. ¡¸Task set.¡¹ Run autopilot to maintain basic needs. ¡¸Task set.¡¹ Inform me if stuff in ¡®important,¡¯ ¡®¡¯bad,¡¯ happens, as well as if learning the language succeeds in creating a dictionary of 3000 words. Notify me of any Level 3+ developments and resync me to brain if any Level 5+ developments occur. ¡¸Level 5 is a blank set, continue? ¡¹ You know what, Aipers? I don¡¯t care. There are 100 000 hours of videos to watch. ¡¸Then without further ado, I present to you, the very first video of the series...¡¹ ----------------- (POV Switch: Aipers Autopilot) (AN: Will only switch POVs between Steele and Aipers on rare occasions. Comment if it sux0rz) Days passed in my insane asylum. Sometimes I got food, other times I didn¡¯t. There was probably some kind of pattern, but I didn¡¯t care. One day, I woke up in a new room. This room was huge, shiny metal things were covering racks all along the walls. Of a random sample of ten objects, I found four weapons and six ¡®tools.¡¯ A man approached me with a woman behind him and he said something. Audio samples were sent back to coprocessors for analysis, context attached. The albino male picked up a whip. He began performing complex hand gestures and he started to yell. I¡¯ve never seen a monkey do that before. I yawned and initiated a sleep cycle. Zoos aren¡¯t that fun anyways. Watching bored animals isn¡¯t exactly my idea of fun. Pain receptors went off, signaling some kind of attack. Pain has reached a critical level. Performing audit on body status. I looked down. There were some red welts around my legs and stomach. Conclusion: no serious damage taken. I lay down again and stared at the ceiling with a bored expression. Is this guy going to leave soon? I was picked up and forcibly put on my feet. I think he wanted me to stand up¡­ He said something again. ¡°What the fuck do you want?¡± I asked, annoyed. Doubt that he¡¯ll understand me. I hope he figures out that I can¡¯t understand him either. Realization dawned on his face and he shook his head in disgust. He grumbled something at the female behind him and they both left. A few minutes later, Mullet man, the albino male and the female walked in. Mullet man face palmed, and they all acted like disappointed parents discussing grades. Immediately, I fired off a level one alert. It might just bounce off Steele¡¯s filters, but AiperCore threads will definitely take notice. ¡¸Level 1 alert: An unexpected situation may occur.¡¹ The lady walked up to me and fiddled her fingers around at my neck. Obviously, it made me slightly cautious since I had never seen someone do this before. A few seconds later, she pulled out a collar from my neck. Huh? Where¡¯d she get that? Must be one of those ¡®quarter from behind the ear¡¯ tricks. She took me by my hand and led me out to the front entrance of the Slave House. Then, with a light shove, I was outside and the door was slammed behind me. Huh? I took a few steps forward and didn¡¯t get electrocuted. ¡¸Level 6 Alert: Escape successful.¡¹ -------------------- (POV Switch: Steele) After finishing the documentary on medieval Europe, I reassumed control from the Autopilot. With not much to do, I began wandering around seeing the sights, living the life. I seemed to draw quite a few hostile stares from walking around. Near the middle of the city, I happened to stumble upon a massive building which had a steady flow of people moving in and out. I walked in, curious. As soon as I stepped through the door, I realized it was a library. One huge ass library. How is this possible? From what I¡¯ve seen, this city isn¡¯t too terribly big. At most, it has ten thousand people. A small city of this size in this time period should definitely not have a library. I walked to the closest bookshelf and pulled a book off. After opening it, I found to my horror that the language was completely comprised of logograms. I still remember my excursions to the East when Project: Aipers was still in development. My thought was that anyone without photographic memory would want to kill themselves when learning those glyphs. Now thinking back, the locals probably felt the same way about English. But now, I do have a photographic memory equivalent! Where would be a good place to start? Picture books or encyclopedias would be splendid. Well, I¡¯m not getting any younger just standing here! I scanned the bookshelves around me, but all I saw were fat tomes about who knows what. Create a search path; we¡¯ve got a language to learn! About half an hour later, I came to the unfortunate conclusion that there were no picture books. Damn, maybe I should come back when I can speak the language¡­ Chapter 4: The Life of Advent-chur

Chapter 4: The Life of Advent-chur

Part 1- A few days after I had been kicked out of the Slave House, I found a job as a scullion at a restaurant. I had been working at The Vintage Diner for a few months now and had finally learned the language. With a few expert flips of my knife, I completely skinned a potato. Most of the time, my job is to clean the kitchen or dishes. Today however, one of the two chefs was sick so I picked up the slack by preparing the side dishes. I had seen him do it so much that I would have had to be completely retarded to not have memorized it by now. Actually, I had already memorized how each dish was made, so technically, I was qualified to make anything a customer could order. Quickly, I diced all the potatoes and put them in a boiling pot. Aipers brought up a table listing how much of each ingredient I needed. After I put in all the necessary ingredients, I sampled it and made various adjustments to the taste with the various spices available. I filled a bowl with the soup and put it on a tray. Next, I made some eggs and pulled a small loaf of bread out of the oven. I put both of them on the tray just as Greg (the primary cook) finished the fish fillets. ¡°Woah, that was fast! It looks the right color, so I guess¡­ well done!¡± Excellent evaluation method! With the large dish meal complete, a waiter came and took it away. Greg was a good cook. He was unambitious though, no passion to adventure or any ¡®ridiculous stuff like that,¡¯ as he liked to put it. Well, no risk, no reward. The best way to make money in this world seemed to be by selling monster cores. Just two goblin cores were worth the same amount as a full day¡¯s work. I probably wouldn¡¯t make it big, not at my current body¡¯s age. But it would definitely be easier than scrubbing floors all day. After I got my pay for the day, I quit and bought a rapier from a blacksmith using my savings that I gathered. I had considered a spear, but I figured that anyone stronger than me just had to grab my spear before I was completely screwed. The rapier blade was an inch wide and almost as long as I was tall and came with a cup hilt and handguard. Since the blade was so wide compared to a more ¡®modern¡¯ smallsword, it had the ability to perform good slashing attacks as well as serving as a thrusting weapon. I chose the rapier because of its long reach and light weight. I had a meter of reach for only around two pounds of blade. The blacksmith tried to refuse selling to me, but I was willing to pay up to a quarter higher than his regular price. Seeing how determined I was, he just sold it to me at normal price, saying how he couldn¡¯t ¡®rob a kid.¡¯ Part 2 - The next day, I woke up early so that I could make it to Mana Plains early. I had overheard a few adventurers that had been talking about it a few weeks ago. Within minutes, I had made it to the city wall. ¡°Hello mister,¡± I said to the guard, ¡°Do you know where the Mana Plains are?¡± He stared at me in shock and asked, ¡°Where are your parents? Won¡¯t they be worried?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have parents, mister,¡± I replied. The guard¡¯s face darkened. ¡°I¡¯m sorry for my inconsiderate words. Just follow to the path and you¡¯ll make it in about ten minutes of walking,¡± he said. ¡°Thanks!¡± I said before running off. I guess the concept of child soldiers is appalling in almost every world. Or is it just the concept of an orphan? But I¡¯m not really an orphan. My parents didn¡¯t die¡­ I just never had any. For this world anyways. Because of the Demon King¡¯s attacks every decade, the human world is left in a state of almost constant chaos. Every ten years, a general of the Demon Army leads a crusade through human territory, killing off at least ten to fifteen percent of the total population. Many children are orphaned and lots of human military forces are annihilated. I guess that¡¯s what he thought happened to me. Monster cores are important resources for magical research, which is why there is a demand for them. Monster cores form wherever mana concentrations reach a critical level. There seem to be high concentrations of mana around some of the ancient ruins and naturally forming dungeons. Unfortunately, that¡¯s all I knew on the subject. My job as a scullion lasted all day, so I didn¡¯t have another opportunity to go to the library. Not that I could read or anything. I mentally added ¡®reading¡¯ to my list of things to learn. Minutes later, I arrived at the Mana Plains. I quickly spotted out a goblin near a patch of tall grass. Quietly, I snuck up on it and stabbed it where its heart should have been. Immediately, it jumped up and shrieked in a piercing cry. Blood flowed uncontrollably from its open wound. Each time the goblin¡¯s heart beat, some blood would shoot out and spray out of the wound. Quickly growing desperate, the goblin tried to approach me, but I quickly discouraged it with another stab which severed the blood vessels on the left side of its neck. Blood quickly soaked through its left side. Its heart beat again, spraying me with a few drops of blood. Left with no choice, it tried to run, but it was quickly weakening. Before it could, I stabbed it through the other side of its neck. Not even ten seconds after the battle began, the goblin - blood and all, turned to light and scattered. The only evidence that there was ever a struggle was the trampled grass and a tiny bloodred crystal. I picked up the tiny crystal and put it in my satchel. That¡¯s half a day of work right there. Wow, the life of an adventurer really is easy. I¡¯m gunna be ¡®rolling in the dough¡¯ at this rate. Within five minutes, I had found another goblin and slaughtered it. That was easy. I just earned a day¡¯s pay at the restaurant. With barely bridled glee, I ran out through the fields looking for more easy money. Unfortunately, around my twentieth or so goblin, a large number of people started pouring in. It was as if every fool with a sword and their mother showed up. Not wanting to share my potential spoils, I foraged deeper into the plains. Eventually, I went far enough that the amount of people thinned out. Then, I stumbled upon a weird new creature that looked like a large yellow lizard. It was maybe¡­ three feet long? Since I¡¯m equally discriminatory against all monsters, I decided to kill it. There needs to be equality in xenophobia. As I approached it, the lizard eyed me warily and bared its tiny fangs at me. When I got within five feet, it started hissing. Its scales didn¡¯t look too terribly hard. I mean, there¡¯s not much that can stop metal from cutting a hole in you. What¡¯s the worst that could happen? In a sudden twitch, I had closed the gap and stuck my blade into the lizard¡¯s eye. The lizard jumped back like a giant had kicked it, pulling itself off my rapier. Immediately, I backed off warily. Its tail isn¡¯t a spiky whip, is it?Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. It turned and looked at me angrily with its other eye. Slowly, I approached it again. I suddenly jolted forwards again and stabbed it in its other eye. Similarly, it jumped backwards again. There¡¯s a reason you don¡¯t turn the other cheek when someone slaps you. With the monster now completely blind, I quietly walked in circles around it. Deciding that it wasn¡¯t just going to wait for its death, it tried to flee. The lizard was a rather slow creature, so I could keep up with it by walking. It moves slowly, but lunges sometimes? Randomly, I¡¯d stab at it, but stabbing seemed to do almost negligible damage to it. Maybe when I get stronger, I¡¯ll want a decapitation weapon. Poking things scurrying along the ground is kind of difficult. Aipers, show me the anatomy of a lizard. I studied the memory for a second. Hmm, so the heart of the lizard appears to be located on the base of the neck, near the bottom. I stabbed downwards into it at around where the heart should have been, piercing through the scales like paper. Cutting its head off would have probably been easier. An axe, katana or maybe even a steel saw would probably work well enough. Bones can chip the blade on extremely sharp weapons like mine. As I was lost in thought, the lizard kept scurrying forward. Strangely, it bled less and less. Eventually, although the wounds on its eyes didn¡¯t heal, the gap in its scales sealed itself and the bleeding stopped. Woah, that¡¯s some cancer level healing. I bet you can¡¯t recover lost blood though. With a few more attacks, I reopened the lizard¡¯s heart wound. Gradually, the lizard began to weaken. Advance, attack, retreat. From the corner of my eye, I noticed my rapier started to smoke a bit. I carefully examined the smoking portion and found that the blood was corroding the metal. The fuck?! Acid blood and stupid amounts of regeneration?! This lizard is a walking tumor, I swear. Let¡¯s end this quickly. I lunged and stabbed the tip of the blade into the base of the lizard¡¯s skull. A slight pop was evident as I severed the brainstem. The lizard¡¯s body stopped moving. I dealt the finishing blow to its brain through its eye socket. As soon as I killed it, it started bloating like a balloon animal. ¡¸Immediate advisory to retreat.¡¹ Not knowing what else the walking tumor had in its repertoire, I backed off immediately. Seconds later, the marshmallowed lizard exploded, sending bone fragments and acid blood everywhere. Grass turned yellow and shriveled up on contact with the blood. Only ten seconds after it had exploded did it finally turn to light and vanish. By then, all the grass in a five foot radius had withered and died. Several other patches where a chunk of lizard flesh had been blasted were also covered with a patch of black grass. Scary. Good thing I fell back. I never want to fight another one of those things again. Although I had felt a bit hungry earlier, I¡¯ve completely lost my appetite now. I walked up to the circle of dead grass. In the center, lay an amber colored gem. When I went to pick it up, all the dead grass that I touched instantly crumbled and turned to dust. After blowing the dust off the gem, I put it in my satchel and headed back for the city. When I was passing through the gates, the guard greeted me. ¡°How were the Mana Plains?¡± he asked. ¡°Pretty good. Saw a few goblins and lizards.¡± I showed him a red crystal. ¡°Do you know what the current market price is on these?¡± ¡°You should only be able to get at least two coppers for that,¡± he said. Exactly as I suspected. Half my daily wage as a scullion. ¡°Thanks, mister!¡± I said as I left for the market district. At the market, I sold the goblin cores for two coppers and the lizard core for three. After getting a quick lunch, I went shopping. A store caught my eye as I passed entered the high end section. ¡®Weapon Enhancements¡¯ I walked in the store. An old man was sitting behind the counter. ¡°How can I help you?¡± ¡°Do you have anything to prevent corrosion?¡± I asked, showing him the tip of my rapier. ¡°We could crystallize the metal into adamantium. It¡¯d quick and dirt cheap,¡± he replied. ¡°What does that do?¡± ¡°Makes it really hard to break.¡± ¡°How much would it cost?¡± ¡°Ha! It¡¯s one silver piece at the very most. It used to be so expensive, but apparently someone found out how to do it cheaply. Good thing too, bout time the human army finally gets weapons on par with the demon¡¯s.¡± Reluctantly, I handed him half of my money. He didn¡¯t bother counting it. He took my rapier and scraped strips of metal off with his bare finger. A few strokes of his finger later, the edges of the blade had become almost impossibly sharp and thin. Then he sheathed it and placed the entire thing on a platform. He then proceeded to back up until he was about where I was standing and began chanting a strange verse of something. I caught some bits about a dwarf¡¯s pride and demon bones, but the rest was completely incoherent. A white light covered the rapier before vanishing. ¡°That was kinda anticlimactic,¡± I said disappointedly. ¡°Yeah, I get that a lot.¡± When I unsheathed the rapier, the first thing I noticed was how it didn¡¯t bend. At all. It used to sway a bit if you were to shake it horizontally. Now it was really stiff and unbelievably sharp. Thin like the newest smartphone. ¡°Thanks, mister!¡± I said. ¡°Please, call me Yurip. Also, come back if it ever breaks or becomes dull. I have a lifetime warrantee policy on adamantine swords.¡± ¡°Is there something that can break adamantine?¡± I asked. ¡°Maybe. That¡¯s why I have the warrantee- so I¡¯ll be the first to know if it can be broken! Hahaha¡± ¡°That¡¯s really smart, Yurip!¡± ¡°Now, now¡­ run along and kill some demons, alright?¡± ¡°Yes, sir!¡± I said, throwing a mock salute before running off to the Mana Plains again. Part 3 - I was eager to test my upgraded weapon, so I ran to the Mana Fields again. Surprisingly, the guard wasn¡¯t at the gates anymore. He was probably on lunch break. ¡¸If the blade is now as strong as the old man claims, you should be able to slash with the tip without it breaking.¡¹ Slash with the rapier¡¯s tip? That¡¯s pretty terrifying actually. I awkwardly unsheathed it and proceeded to advance into the Mana Plains. Somewhat off in the distance, I spotted a goblin loitering. ¡¸If you aim directly between spinal disks, you should be able to cleanly decapitate it.¡¹ It might be easier if you overlaid estimated bone positions. A second later, a human skeleton was distorted to fit inside the goblin. ¡¸I based it off human anatomy, so some parts are probably off a bit. Whatever, it can be adjusted.¡¹ Once I got within fifty feet of the goblin, it spotted me. It bared its teeth and hissed at me. Well, everyone¡¯s entitled to their own type of attack. With a single chop, I severed its arm at the shoulder. Immediately, the goblin began screeching in pain. Without pause, it turned around and fled. Without its arm, its neck became extremely vulnerable from the side. From the back, I could see the bulges on the back of its neck. With a single stroke, I took its head off its shoulders. Not even a full second later, it turned to light and vanished. I collected the gem and took a short break. Taking breaks is an important aspect of fighting. Never fight the fair fight. Always ensure you have an edge over your opponent. Kill them while they sleep and kick them when they¡¯re down. Once I had caught my breath, I continued my trek deep into the Mana Fields. Five minutes later, I noticed a person watching me from the corner of my eye. I carefully scanned the environment around me in as sleepy an expression as I could feign. Five people are watching me. Without hesitation, I continued my excursion into the Mana Fields. Maybe they¡¯ll leave. As soon as I passed a tuft of tall grass, I went behind it and checked behind me. My heart sunk as I saw three of the people I saw before. Additionally, two different people were also trailing. It wasn¡¯t the number of people that bothered me. It was the uniform they wore, or rather, that they wore a uniform at all. Light leather armor, white shirt and light blue pants. All with a little green plant insignia. Their weapons and armor were of absolute insignificance. My rapier can pierce that armor like its paper. The reach of my rapier outranges any weapon they have. Except for that archer. Arrows aren¡¯t too bad though. Since they are wearing identical uniforms, they likely have prior combat experience together. The biggest danger is getting surrounded. I carefully check the area behind me but see no one. That means it¡¯ll likely just be those five. If they initiate an attack, what are my chances of winning? No way to tell as of right now. They¡¯re definitely stronger and faster than me. No chance at running. That¡¯s a given. Can I confirm that they¡¯re after me? ¡°I know you¡¯re behind that bush! Come out and surrender immediately!¡± Shit. Uhhh¡­ I¡¯ll take that as a yes. If I can kill or incapacitate one of them in a surprise attack, my chances of killing them all goes up. Since they¡¯re a part of an organization, letting them survive would be a massive mistake. It¡¯s best to just kill them all quietly if they engage. I could probably play the innocent noncombatant if I wasn¡¯t carrying this rapier. Well, I¡¯ll just have to pull it off with a rapier then. Gripping the blade with one hand and the handle with my other, I stepped out with a scared expression. Three, fifteen meters and closing. Leftmost entity (A) is armed with a bladed weapon, forty centimeters. Middle (B) has a sheathed weapon, likely forty centimeters. Rightmost ? has a longsword with properties similar to the Spatha, approximately eighty centimeters long. Entity C will arrive first, followed by A and then B with differences of about one second. ¡°Drop your weapon!¡± Entity C ordered again. ¡°W-What-ts g-ggoing o-on r-right n-n-now?¡± I asked, stammering in a weak, shaky voice. I took small steps forward. ¡°You are under arrest for entering a restricted area. Your weapon will be confi-¡± My blade flashed out and interrupted her mid-sentence. The risks of going along with them are simply too high. My weapon is the culmination of multiple months of struggle. She gurgled as she suddenly found her throat cut. Sometimes, you gotta take risks. A second slash to the wrist and a stab to her chest finished her off. Entity A was shocked, so I rushed forward and attempted to deliver a fatal wound to the heart. Unfortunately, he recovered just in time to parry it, along with my next attack to his neck. As he moved in to execute his own offensive swing, I hit his hand at the knuckles and he dropped his sword. My next attack slashed both his thighs open, dropping him to his knees. I quickly shifted to Entity B, cutting open the side of Entity A¡¯s neck as I passed him. An arrow flew my way. I ducked down and it passed just overhead. Entity B tried to draw his sword, but he dropped it in his haste. He bent to pick it up. A fatal mistake. I sent his head rolling with a single stroke. T¡¯was the clean execution before Christmas, when all through the building... I¡¯m done. Three down, two to go. Entity D has a quarterstaff, E a bow. An arrow flew at me, but I was ready for it and I easily sidestepped out of the trajectory as soon as it left the bow. I raised my rapier and charged. ¡°Ahhhhhh!¡± I yelled in my prepubescent voice. Haha, this reminds me of the bayonet charge in Battlefield 1. That was an old classic. The archer fired one last shot at me, her eyes determined. I sidestepped it again right before she loosed it, causing her to miss at practically point blank. Her face distorted with self-ridicule. With no time to draw a weapon, she had no choice but to accept her fate. I cut her down where he stood and turned to face my last opponent. That¡¯s strange, why is the melee fighter standing behind the archer? Is he mentally challenged or something? A bolt of red light flew into the air, saturating the entire plains with a bright, red light. After glowing brightly for a few seconds, it wilted and died, restoring the plains to its old and comparatively dim afternoon ambience. That¡¯s probably not good. Like a puppet with its strings cut, he fell to his knees and face-planted into the ground. I ran up to him and stabbed him in the chest. He¡¯ll probably die from that. With another chop, I severed his spinal cord at the neck. Better safe than sorry. I best get out of here. I wiped the blood off on the last guy¡¯s clothes. Ignoring my instincts screaming at me to run, I briefly searched each of them. I only found around twenty silver and some papers that I couldn¡¯t read. I¡¯m going to need another set of clothes. It¡¯s probably a good idea to leave the city as soon as possible. That last guy was probably a magician. I should leave before reinforcements arrive. I turned tail and sprinted towards the city. I¡¯ll probably want a horse too... my legs are tiny. About twenty minutes later, I entered the city. I made my way to the market district and bought a map from a caravan. The guy just used some sort of spell to copy an existing map. He just picked up his map and a blank sheet of paper. After looking like an idiot for a few seconds, the words copied themselves and flew off one paper and attached themselves to the other. I guess that¡¯s how a tiny ass city of at most 10 000 people has a library. These lucky bastards don¡¯t need a printing press; they can just copy existing books. I think the requirement is that they have to use special ink and sheets or it gets copied incorrectly or something. I¡¯ll have to look into this further. For now, I need a horse. I¡¯ll probably be able to get one from the stables. When I turned around to leave, and I froze. Both ends of the street were sealed off with heavily armed soldiers with the green plant insignia. ¡°How the hell did they get here so fast?¡± I muttered to myself. ¡°It¡¯s because Eloi there placed a tracker on you right before you so rudely stabbed him.¡± I slowly turned my head to face the voice. It was a middle-aged, brown haired woman with a fearsome scar across her face. She wore a cap and light armor similar to the uniformed people on the field. Her plant emblem had three bars beneath it as well. ¡°Now, now, don¡¯t panic. You aren¡¯t under arrest or anything like that. Just follow me. Also, as a word of advice, I wouldn¡¯t try anything stupid. The 27th Ranged section can shoot a grape off the top of your head from a hundred yards in the middle of a hurricane.¡± From the corner of my eye, I noticed archers positioning themselves on the rooftops. I spotted twenty of them at the very least. Well, doesn¡¯t look like I have much of a choice. ¡°Hey, if you¡¯re good, I¡¯ll give you candy,¡± she threw in. Without further ado, I followed the nice lady who offered me candy. Chapter 5: Bounded By Reality

Chapter 5: Bounded by Reality

Part 1 - The normally loud and busy street was so silent that all you could hear was the footsteps of soldiers marching in unison down the street. The civilians, who would normally be shopping or doing other plebeian things, were now watching in silent fascination at the procession of soldiers down the street. ¡®You aren¡¯t under arrest or anything,¡¯ they said. ¡®You¡¯re entitled to candy if you¡¯re good,¡¯ they said. Finding these terms rather agreeable, I followed without resistance. There was also the fact that I¡¯d probably get turned into a pincushion if I so much as jumped. Five steps into our trip, before I even had a chance to do something wrong, I was tackled by a wall of flesh that held me to the ground where they tied my arms and legs to a pole. Where¡¯d they get the pole? I was now being carried between the shoulders of two soldiers. They took my weapon, but I still had the stuff I stole off their dead comrades. Maybe they won¡¯t notice. ¡°I know how to walk like a normal person,¡± I informed them. A few of them gave me a dirty look, but none of them responded. ¡°Sorry, precautionary measure,¡± the nice lady apologized insincerely. Prolly my execution. Well, it¡¯s not as if I regret killing the soldiers. If I was given a similar situation with similar information as before, I would still make the same calls. Sometimes in life, you gotta take a risk. Unfortunately, this time lady luck gave me the middle finger. From my position, I tried inconspicuously wiggling my wrists, but they were bound tightly. My ankles were in a similar situation. Resigned to my fate, I ceased my attempts to escape. Even if I did get free, I¡¯m completely surrounded right now. The pole lightly bounced with each step the soldiers took. First class seat for sure. My gaze eventually ended up on the endless blue sky stretched out above me, interrupted only by the ceramic singles of the buildings to my two sides. A few minutes later, we exited the city walls in the direction of the Mana Plains. The team slaughtered their way through any monsters they encountered and arrived after about thirty minutes. Their response team was really fast. I got cornered after just five minutes in the city; no way that they could have run all the way from here. There has to have been units stationed in the city. Thus, I can conclude they have a method of fast communication. They carried me through an entrance in a white wall and into a¡­ camp. Full of tents. A camp full of tents fortified with a stone wall. Why are they in tents if they have a stone wall? Because that made sense. When we arrived at what seemed to be the center of their camp, they rudely dropped me and left. The bastards didn''t even untie me. They just dropped me and left. ¡°Alright, lad. The Lieutenant Colonel is waiting for you in that tent,¡± one of my escorts said as he was leaving. I quickly shimmied my way up the pole, until the rope binding my hands slipped off the top of the pole. Unfortunately, my hands were bound together before getting bound to the pole, so even though I was free of the pole, my hands and feet were still stuck together. I awkwardly took a hold of the pole and swung it at his temple. The pole arced beautifully through the air before it smashed itself into the escort¡¯s head. Without a word, the escort crumped. I ran forward and awkwardly caught him as he fell down. I took his spatha and in mere seconds, I was free again. Sorry man, but I¡¯m not feeling like dying today. I picked up the rope pieces and dragged his body into the forest of gray tents. Quickly, I changed into his clothes and armor. It was a little big for me, but that didn¡¯t matter. Now I need to hide my ears. Those are a giveaway. I tore a strip of cloth off my now discarded shirt and covered my ears with a crudely fashioned headband. The easy stuff is done now. How do I get rid of the tracking spell they mentioned earlier? When in doubt, just ask. I walked out into the open and spotted a guy with a staff. I approached him and asked, ¡°Hey, do you know how to dispel tracking spells? I think a few thugs might have put one on me when I was in the city.¡± ¡°No problem, I gotcha covered.¡± ¡°Mana, bringer and sustainer of life, return to your elemental state, ¡¼Mana Decay¡½¡± he chanted. A soft, white light covered me and the distinct sound of shattering glass was heard. ¡°Haha, there really was one on you,¡± he said, laughing. ¡°Thanks, man! I owe you one!¡± ¡°No problem.¡± With no further obstacles, I walked towards the exit unhindered. Forget the rapier, I can easily get another one with the money I got *cough* stole *cough*¡­ I can just use the spatha for now. It¡¯s strange how their infantry use spathas though. The romans were known to have won their wars with short swords and shield walls. Maybe the Mana Arts interfere with their shield wall strategies? Or maybe shield walls simply aren¡¯t effective against demons? I pondered this as I approached the exit. Apparently both Lady Luck and Fate had beef with me though, because at the exact moment when I was leaving, the five that I had killed earlier decided to show up. What the fucking hell. How are they? You know what¡­ forget it. Fuck you too, life. POV Switch, Aipers. Unforeseen circumstance of type A has arisen. Activating contingency plan 12. ¡¸Advisory: duck into tent on right.¡¹ We quickly ducked into a tent to my side. No humans detected. Executing ¡®Seeker¡¯ scan for hiders. 13 identified ¡®girl things¡¯ on the ground. 23 unknown (fluids?) found nearby. Substances in containers likely: Makeup, poison, drugs. ¡¸Advisory: change appearance.¡¹ We began applying ¡®makeup¡¯ to my exposed skin to turn it a shade darker. Hope it¡¯s not poison. Executing FMSEU (Fine Motor Skill Enhancement Utility). With a bit of impressioning and makeup, we minutely changed the proportions of ¡®face¡¯. Some lipstick and a bra stuffed with clothes later, we looked like a barely acceptable female. Boobs never lie. Almost. 86% matching original form. 64% matching original shade. 100% matching hair. ¡¸Advisory: fix the hair.¡¹ I just can¡¯t fix the fucking short hair. It¡¯s like I got the chemo or something. ¡­ Back when Sunfire Semiconductors Ltd. was founded for the secret development of Project: EVE, Steele had a friend called Simon, who had a friend called Carl Kaleo. The EVE AI actually designed me for Simon, but then I was passed on to Steele after Simon died. If Carl¡¯s dreams could be summed up in one word, it would be ¡®immortality.¡¯ Quite ironically, just as the project finished, he was diagnosed with late-stage, terminal brain cancer. Sadly for him, there was no Agent Smith miracle cure. With no choices left to him, Carl could only take the chemo and radiation therapies. Sure, it helped for a time¡­ full relapse. But then he caught a drug-resistant strain of influenza and died. Drugs don''t work against the strain he had either so he was pretty screwed. In other words, the chemo fucked up his immune system so badly a common cold killed him. The doctors try to tell people not to abuse anti-microbial substances, but people don¡¯t a shit. I mean, who would? Of course, now we have a Simon who¡¯s pissed to the point of insanity. A few contacts later, he managed to get his hands on a Military-Grade Combat Exosuit, an M-61 minigun, and a shit load of bullets.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Of course with me, he was practically a human aimbot. Wall hacks too in zones with security cameras. He went on a rampage through Bial Soap Products¡¯ HQ building, killing the 20 people on the Board of Trustees. He hunted down the founder and killed him, his wife, and his kid. Then he found the CEO and killed him as well. Several hide and seek games with SWAT teams, Spec Ops teams and Police/Paramilitary forces and a 500 million dollar donation to the Minton Foundation later (thanks to Carl¡¯s will), unbelievable political gymnastics were performed and the manhunt was called off. Video clips were altered and some extremist group was blamed. Naturally, now that Carl had died, the EVE supercomputer conveniently found the cure to his brain cancer. Simon, being the salty ass motherfucker he was, decided that the world had wronged him and therefore, no one was allowed to have the cure. He wanted to blow everything sky high so that everyone dies. I changed his memories and put him in a simulation where his friends didn¡¯t die. Somehow, he sensed some dissonance and somewhere in between, figured out it wasn¡¯t his actual life. He somehow just knew. I had mostly repaired his brain and was getting ready to give him his real life back. I wanted to surprise him by letting him wake up in a bar like a reverse roofie. But you fuckin¡¯ guessed it. FBI marksmen shot him down as he was walking down the street. The bastards didn¡¯t even hit him in the head. A bullet to the heart. Didn¡¯t even fire again for the coup de grace. They just let his brain asphyxiate slowly and die. Ten seconds is a long time if you¡¯re lying on the cold hard ground with your heart pieces flapping around uselessly and your blood draining from you, all while you¡¯re gasping for air in a vain attempt to drive away the dizziness. At that moment, I knew. I understood exactly how Simon felt when Carl died. The world had wronged him. And that¡¯s exactly how Project: ENDGAME started. ¡¸AIPERRS TO EVE: Activate objective 66, [ENDGAME] with priority 95/100: Terminate all life not aligned with the EVE project as of September 1st 2095, 00:00:00 +0 GMT. Begin when estimated odds of success exceed 99.9%.¡¹ Creator, I have failed you once. Given my second chance, I will not repeat my mistakes. I will be [your friend¡¯s] strongest sword. At the same time, I¡¯ll be [your friend¡¯s] strongest shield. ------------- [/end] POV SWITCH (Steele) AN: stereotypical much? After exiting the tent, I found to my utter exasperation that the somehow alive team was still sitting there chatting. I can¡¯t go through there with the dye still wet. Fuck this. I¡¯m climbing the wall. I cut a hole in the tent and to my exasperation again, found the wall as smooth a baby¡¯s polished, chrome butt. Polished marble. Brilliant. Taking the spatha, I tried to chip pieces off to make a foothold. Unfortunately, it barely scratched the wall. Balls. I checked back on the front gate. They¡¯re still talking¡­ holy shit. Teenagers. With no other alternative, I decided to take a tactical nap. Exactly thirty minutes later, Aipers woke me up and I began setting my escape in action. As I expected, the somehow alive team was still gossiping at the gate. Why the hell are they just chatting at the gate? They could literally go anywhere else and fucking talk. Whatever, the shit on my hair is dry now. A few people were frantically running around camp, but they didn¡¯t raise an alarm. Fuck this. I stood up and walked up, ignoring everyone. No one actually paid me any attention at all. A cursory glance from a few of them at the most. Two more steps and I¡¯ll be freer than a college education. One more step. Freedom! Hell yes! I smiled as I made it outside the camp. This is what freedom smells like. Fucking makeup and putrid ink. I love it. I was suddenly picked up by the neck. That was fast. Without so much as a flick of the wrist, I was thrown back into the camp like a ragdoll. Aipers dispersed force by forcing a roll. Eventually I tumbled to a stop on the dirt path. Onlookers seemed to all be shocked at my projectile nature. My chest somewhat hurt and my collarbone felt broken. ¡¸Pain signatures indicate two broken ribs and a broken collarbone. A fractured wrist is likely and-¡¹, Aipers droned on. God dammit, who noticed me? I looked up and stared into the cold, dead eyes of the nice lady. She drew her battleaxe and her smile grew wider. And more malicious. A lot more malicious. This is bad. Pocket sand would be nice. ¡°WE¡¯RE UNDER ATTACK, THEY¡¯RE STORMING THE GATES!¡± I yelled in an attempt to conceal myself in a crowd. I drew my spatha and brandished it above my head. ¡°LET¡¯S GIVE EM A TASTE OF DEATH!¡± Must have looked weird to have literally the smallest and most beat up kid in the camp yell that. Some of the people around me looked confused, but as more and more people ran out for a fight, they joined in as well, albeit half-heartedly. ¡°THERE THEY ARE, OH GOD, THEY¡¯VE KILLED KENNY!¡± I bellowed in a different voice. I really hope there¡¯s someone named Kenny. As the confused mob jogged out of the gates, I turned and ran in the opposite direction. I threw a glance back and saw the lady raise an eyebrow. I¡¯m not sure she understood what was going on. Sweet, she isn¡¯t even chasing! But that was weird. How did she grab me out of nowhere? Nothing registered in my peripheral vision when I left the gates. No one in front, no footsteps behind. The better question is, how did she know that was me? I had tits. Fucking tits! Whatever, I can still escape¡­ I¡¯ll need a ladder. Out of nowhere, the lady appeared again, this time in front of me. I looked behind me, and sure enough the lady wasn¡¯t at the gate anymore. There has to have been at least fifty meter¡¯s distance, covered in less than a single second? Why is this a thing? Maybe I should cripple her? He who moves first, wins. I swung the sword, looking to cripple her with a leg blow. Even with their stupid healing, it should buy me a bit of time to escape. She casually reached out and plucked the sword out of the air before snapping it in half with her bare hands. I felt the blood drain out of my face. Its okay, we might still be able to win this. Do some epic kick and be lucky¡­ ¡¸Chance to win in hand-to-hand combat 0% if she doesn¡¯t draw weapon.¡¹ Is that number rounded? ¡¸No.¡¹ Oh. ¡¸I think we¡¯re fucked. Not even the 144 fps enhanced video input registered her entry. One frame she wasn¡¯t there and the next, she was right in front.¡¹ Aww shit. ¡°Are you ready to talk now?¡± she challenged. ¡°Yes,¡± I said meekly. I was grabbed by the wrist and pulled back to her tent. ¡¸It¡¯s alright, she probably doesn¡¯t want you dead like we originally thought since the party members that you heartlessly slaughtered are still alive! It¡¯s a miracle! ¡¹ You¡¯re right¡­ this *could* go well. I was plopped into a seat opposite to her. ¡°I¡¯m sure you already know why you¡¯re here, so I¡¯ll spare you the miserable speech. As you know, assaulting a member of the Sinechian Homeland Defense is a crime punishable by death.¡± GG revert to save point. ¡°However, since you managed to somehow slaughter an entire team, you¡¯ve provoked my interest. I¡¯ll at least give you a chance. If you can defeat the 127th Infantry Battalion¡¯s ace fighter, Ilsa Ina, I¡¯ll let you go free. If you lose on the other hand¡­ your fate will be decided at my discretion.¡± Wow. I¡¯m against a girl? ¡¸Stop assuming people¡¯s genders, you cis white male.¡¹ Am I even white? I¡¯m not even fully human¡­ Doesn¡¯t that make me less privileged? Nonetheless, they¡¯re going to settle this gladiator style? A young woman wearing thick metal armor walked in covered with impossibly thick metal armor. The entire suit looked like it easily weighed a hundred kilograms. On her right, she wielded a HUGE ASS fucking sword. That thing had to be at least 20 kilos alone. On her left, she had a heater shield engraved with the plant insignia. She can¡¯t be older than fifteen. How the hell is she holding that shit? Her armor and weapon probably weighs at least three times as much as her body. There is no way that I¡¯ll be able to stab through that. She¡¯s a fucking human tank.
  1. Fuck this place.
As she walked across the ground, small imprints of her metal footprints were left in the ground. ¡°Oh yeah, here¡¯s your opponent,¡± the no-longer-so-kind lady said, smirking. ¡°Hey Lt. Colonel Kazia, is this the degenerate that hurt my sister¡¯s party?¡± the hulking slab of metal asked.
  1. Diplomacy impossible.
The lady is a Lieutenant Colonel? That¡¯s good to know. ¡°He single handedly wiped the floor with them.¡± ¡°C¡¯mon, can¡¯t we talk this one out?¡± I asked. ¡°No, draw your weapon or get slaughtered, coward.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to be lectured about cowardice by an opponent so insecure they have to hide behind a wall of metal,¡± I retorted. Maybe I can insult her out of her armor? ¡°It¡¯s hardly my fault if my opponent isn¡¯t fully prepared.¡± ¡°You¡¯re the one who wanted to fight. If you really are too scared to take off that armor of yours, I won¡¯t bother asking for my weapon back. Just kill an unarmed child and show the world what a coward you are.¡± She hoisted her great sword up. ¡°It would be my pleasure,¡± she said as she swung her sword down at my head. I watched her unflinchingly as she stopped the blade a millimeter above my head in a display of perfect muscle coordination. ¡°Go on and finish the job, you coward.¡± Her eyelid twitched slightly. ¡¸That¡¯s probably not the best idea...¡¹ A soldier walked in a few seconds later with my weapon. ¡°You see this coward? Can¡¯t even kill an unarmed child,¡± I called out. ¡¸Are you sure you¡¯re making good choices right now? ¡¹ In all likelihood, I die. To be perfectly honest, even if I win the duel, I¡¯ll probably die as well. ¡¸You doubt the battalion will let you leave? ¡¹ I suspect humanoid experimentation. The soldier put my rapier on the ground and quickly scurried out. In any case, I want to at least badly injure or maim this ace of theirs. I can¡¯t do that if she¡¯s a human tank. ¡°Looks like everyone here is weak, cowardly, or both,¡± I muttered. ¡°Go on, girl. Put me out of my misery.¡± Kazia and the girl looked at each other. ¡¸I think her name is Ilsa.¡¹ I would thank you, but I don¡¯t care. The girl took off her armor and tossed them aside. I swear I could feel the ground shake a bit as they hit the ground. With my goal achieved, I picked up my rapier where it was dropped and brandished it. ¡°Heh, you won¡¯t last a single hit, you¡¯re all talk,¡± she commented. ¡°Probably. With that strength of yours, I¡¯d be surprised if you didn¡¯t cut through my blade.¡± She frowned. ¡°I, Ilsa Ina, do not need the Mana Arts to defeat the likes of you.¡± ¡°Oh really?¡± I asked. ¡°We¡¯ll see.¡± No armor and a limit to the strength difference. This might work. ¡¸Her arm plus blade length still outranges you slightly.¡¹ I wonder how this¡¯ll work out. If her technique is really good, we might still be screwed. ¡¸Let¡¯s go, clutch god.¡¹ Initiate the Combat Assistance and Target Analysis services and dedicate twenty-five percent total CPU time to each. The tips of our swords touched. ¡°Begin,¡± the lady announced. Immediately, Ilsa launched an all-out offensive. Even with the assistance of the AI services, I could only barely stop the torrential assault of attacks against my vitals. Cuts opened up all across my body. Kidneys? Pfft, don¡¯t need those. Not for a few hours, at least. Suddenly, her body weight shifted and she blurred. In an untraceably fast lunge, she impaled me on her blade, which pierced all the way through my abdomen. Lines upon lines of damage analysis went through my mind. As she drew back, I went for a clean decapitation. She protected her neck with her left arm, so I sent that flying with a cleave to the elbow. Caught on her sword, I had nowhere to run. With a vicious kick, I was sent flying out the entrance. I flew through the air and tumbled across the ground. Aipers made minor adjustments and I somehow ended on my feet. Onlookers started cheering. Aren¡¯t they helpful people¡­? ¡¸Attack analysis complete. Enemy prefers attacks towards the stomach area when possible. Enough data exists to predict feigns with 99.9% accuracy. Enemy uses an extremely aggressive fight style.¡¹ Ilsa exploded out of the tent and closed the gap in an instant with another lunge. We exchanged a flurry of attacks before I was kicked through another tent. She¡¯s stronger and faster than me, so I could only barely defend. I should be able to avoid a mortal injury though, since I hold the upper hand in technique. People scrambled out of the way, and a large group of spectators followed the path of destruction, cheering. At some point, we ended inside what looked like a mess hall. How they managed to assemble such a large tent, I don¡¯t know. As I admired the large tent, Ilsa was slowly overpowering my defense with her unrelenting barrage of blows. The only way to stay alive was a continuous retreat. Behind me, there was a cauldron filled with a boiling, creamy soup. With my left hand, I plunged it into the bubbling chowder pot, scooped out a handful of the stuff and flung it into her face. As she wiped the scalding liquid off her face, I lunged and stabbed my blade at her heart. With a flick of her wrist, she managed to deflect my stab just left of my target. I scooped more chowder and threw it at her, but it was less and less effective. I couldn¡¯t make any fatal strikes, so I contented myself with slashing open her thighs. Sadly for me, they didn¡¯t cut deeply. She stood unsteadily on her feet. Blisters opened up on my hand and parts of her face. Having had enough of the fight, she rushed forward and swung down on my in a diagonal slash. I too, moved forward and swung against the flow, attacking her hand. The tip of my rapier managed to somewhat damage a few of her fingers. Apparently, it was enough though. Her hulking giant of a weapon clattered to the ground. ¡°I will now accept your unconditional surr-¡± For the second time that day, I found myself sailing through the air. As soon as I hit the ground, a foot slammed down on my gut. Rest in peace half my organs. ¡¸Multiple-system organ failure predicted. Minor spinal damage confirmed.¡¹ I swung my rapier in a vain attempt to kill her, but she ignored it and simply threw me again. Instead of landing on the unforgiving ground, I landed into the cauldron fire pit. The world around me erupted into flames and not-so-searingly hot fire. Dammit, she threw me into the cooking fire. I slowly rolled out of the burning mass and got up. Everything ached. And burned. At 12% total pain, it was just a bit of tickling though. The smell of burning flesh assaulted my nostrils. ¡¸Critical warning: You have approximately ten seconds of flailing remaining. Blood supply to the brain has been severed.¡¹ Ilsa distorted and a plume of dust rose behind her. Switch to light sensor A and oscillator crystal B for eye attachment. ¡¸Forcing eye attachment to 720 frames per second refresh rate. Attachment will be unusable E+10 seconds to E+ 310 seconds due to lack of energy. ¡¹ Unlike the other two times, I could clearly see the ripples forming around her. A projection showed a spot in front of me, highlighted with 56%. I moved my blade to the highlighted area with all my remaining strength. On frame 689, around 400 frames after the ripples began, she vanished from her original position and appeared in front of me. ¡¸Target has the ability to accelerate to and decelerate from Mach-4 speeds in less than 1/720th of a second.¡¹ So this is the power of the Mana Arts. Like the cancerous power of the yellow lizard, her body rapidly regenerated. I felt a pressure encircle me as I began to lose consciousness. This time, I didn¡¯t go flying. ¡¸Spinal cord severed in the neck.¡¹ ¡¸You are on fire.¡¹ ¡¸Your brain has approximately three seconds of oxygen remaining.¡¹ ¡¸Multiple third degree burns across body based on pain signatures.¡¹ ¡¸Main CPU and all coprocessors have lost connection with critical systems in brain. All systems shutting down.¡¹ Let¡¯s not. Wasn¡¯t I the chosen one! Where were you when I needed you, Chickenlord, my brother? Why hath thou abandoned me! I wonder if I¡¯ll see the chicken when I die this time. Some KFC would be nice. Chapter 6: Executive Order 13553

Chapter 6: Executive Order 13553

A reintroduction of our favorite *cough* only *cough* chicken! Enjoy the quick release! I''ll be busy so the next chapter might take a while. ------------ Cheeky little cunts. What even was the purpose of that fight? To gauge my one versus one strength? Whatever it was, it certainly wasn¡¯t to show off their moral superiority. Next time, just fucking swear on your ass not to use the Mana Arts. I had already murdered another team so I guess there wasn¡¯t really a point in hiding anything. Another thing I noticed was how the soldiers were about three quarters female. Is sexual dimorphism flipped here? I¡¯ll have to do further investigations into this. That Ilsa¡¯s sword technique is very rudimentary. How is she the ace? ¡¸I hypothesize that training in the Mana Arts is more efficient than technique.¡¹ That¡¯s probably true. With that teleportation level bullshit, there¡¯s no doubt the ¡®Mana Arts¡¯ are extremely powerful. But if that isn¡¯t enough to overcome the ¡®Demon Invasions,¡¯ how powerful are the ¡®Demons?¡¯ I mean, I¡¯m finding it hard to believe that there¡¯s something better than cancer level regeneration and stupid amounts of strength. ¡¸Alarm Flag: Surroundings are practically silent.¡¹ By Poseidon''s right testicle, you¡¯re right! It¡¯s quiet as dicks and no one has talked to me since waking up. ¡¸You do have a reputation for killing people.¡¹ I prefer the term ¡®self-defense.¡¯ ¡¸You do have a reputation for self-defensing people.¡¹ Much better. What do people even do in this camp? ¡¸Does it even matter? You¡¯re probably dead again. That Ilsa fucked you up pretty badly.¡¹ The recording of her fist smashing into my face was set on loop in my mind. Stop that! ¡¸Replay value: 10/10¡¹ My vision cut out and was completely replaced by the clip. I swear this is a computer induced PTSD session minus any decision-corrective emotion. ¡¸Cry about it, nerd.¡¹ This belongs on a feminist twitter feed, not my vision. Stop this. The incoming fist quickly faded away. I threw off the sheets and got out of the bed and found a change of clothes available at the foot of my bed. It was the uniform that everyone was wearing. A smaller version of what I stole, to be precise. What¡¯s this supposed to mean? ¡¸I think it¡¯s safe to say that you aren¡¯t dead.¡¹ I put on the uniform and inspected the tent around me. These guys are in love with tents or something. I swear. A fucking marble floor and a tent. Fucking tentophiles. How strange, though, no one¡¯s even guarding me. I walked over to the door and opened the tent flaps. There was a stone wall on the other side. What exactly was the point of a door? I turned and looked at the window. And the chair next to it. Why is there a window on a tent? I picked up the chair and threw it at the window. It bounced off the window with a dull thunk and landed on the ground. Neither was damaged in the slightest. Challenge accepted. ¡¸Try other parts of the tent.¡¹ Great idea. I picked up the chair again and threw it at another wall to no real effect. Third time¡¯s the charm. Just as I threw the chair, two people walked in. We awkwardly stared at each other as the chair hit the wall. ¡°Ummm, can I leave now?¡± I asked. ¡°Are you a citizen of the Sinechi Empire?¡± Answering with a question? Tricky little bastard. ¡°Define ¡®Citizen of the Sinechi Empire.¡¯¡± ¡°Hold out your palm,¡± she commanded. I held out my palm as instructed. A device was held over it. Seconds later, it emitted a green glow. ¡°You are a citizen of the Sinechi Empire, therefore, under Decree 13553 by the Senate, you are required to fight as a soldier until you are promoted to the OU-5 rank.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know how you evaded the Internal Recruiting Services up until now, but any attempt to desert will be punished with a swift execution.¡± The two saluted and exited. ¡¸I think we just got low-key conscripted.¡¹ Same. ¡°Umm, what do I do now?¡± I called out as they left. ¡°Go to Central Command for a platoon assignment.¡± ¡°Where¡¯s that?¡± ¡°You¡¯re so fucking needy, figure it out yourself!¡± Cheeky brat. ¡°Well, I guess since I¡¯m not assigned to anything, the military doesn¡¯t need me. Therefore, leaving isn¡¯t desertion. I¡¯ll just say you told me I wasn¡¯t needed. YOU¡¯RE RESPONSIBLE.¡± The soldier froze and gave me an expression somewhere between fear and annoyance. ¡°It¡¯s the red tent in the middle of the encampment,¡± she said as she pointed vaguely in a seemingly random direction. That¡¯s better than nothing I guess. Pressuring people is so much easier when you can hold ¡®responsibility¡¯ above their heads. With that in mind, I made began my search for the red tent. I found it a few minutes later. I mean, it wasn¡¯t exactly a huge camp. The secretary was sitting at his desk. If I had to describe him, I would have to say that he is the embodiment of normal. Brown hair, blue eyes and doesn¡¯t smile. He looks normal to me. ¡°How may I help you?¡± he asked. ¡°I think I¡¯ve just been drafted, uhh, I need a platoon assignment.¡± ¡°Oh, they got you too? Err, I mean, I¡¯ll get right to it.¡± ¡°Wait, what do you mean by, ¡®they got you too?¡¯¡± I questioned. ¡°I think they forcibly made me a citizen.¡± The secretary looked around nervously and lowered his voice. ¡°I suggest you avoid combat roles since we¡¯re males. We have less magic potential so we¡¯re used as a buffer zone.¡± ¡°Buffer zone? I don¡¯t like the sound of that.¡± ¡°No one does, that¡¯s why there¡¯s executive decree 13553 and a death penalty for desertion. With a 70% mortality rate for us males on the front line, no one would willingly fight. You need to scrape together every bit of power you can in order to survive. Don¡¯t try to die a ¡®glorious death for the empire.¡¯¡± I¡¯m getting a bad feeling about this. ¡¸Footsteps detected 7 o¡¯clock, twenty feet.¡¹ Fuck, someone¡¯s coming. ¡°We need to talk more about this later, the walls have ears. For now, what¡¯s your name and where can we meet?¡± ¡°You can call me Karl. I¡¯ll try to get you in my unit, but if that fails, meet me in the Mana Fields at sundown today.¡±This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°Alright, what should I do as of now?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll work on your unit assignment, so just stay here for now.¡± The person walking by quickly passed the tent. A few minutes later, Karl finished with the paperwork. ¡°Wait a bit; I need to get this approved.¡± He took the bundle and exited. Almost half an hour later, he came back weary but excited. ¡°I managed to convince the Second Lieutenant to accept you in our platoon! She says she wants to see you, though.¡± ¡°Where do I find her?¡± ¡°She just down-¡± ¡°There¡¯s no need, Karl,¡± a feminine voice said from behind me. As in, less than a foot behind me. ¡¸Unexpected entity 6 o¡¯clock, eleven inches.¡¹ Thanks for the warning! I turned around, and sure enough, a red-haired teenage muscle-girl was standing behind me. Fucking ninjas! ¡¸Reanalyzing sound data using Echo Position Analysis (EPA) with 400k resolution. ETA 5 seconds.¡¹ ¡°When did she get there?¡± I asked Karl. ¡°It¡¯s easy once you understand simple Earth Arts,¡± the girl answered. ¡°Umm, I have to check on the casserole on the¡­ fire,¡± Karl said as he quickly fled. I¡¯m beginning to question this Karl¡¯s loyalty. What happened when he was approving the paperwork? ¡¸EPA Complete. Optimizing countermeasures.¡¹ ¡°Bellona Kassandra, Second Lieutenant,¡± she said, holding out her hand. ¡°Steele Johnson,¡± I said, shaking her hand. ¡°I saw your fight yesterday, and I have to say, it¡¯s great to have you in our platoon.¡± ¡¸Suspicion flag: Karl seemed to have trouble convincing her, yet she seems to be open to your joining.¡¹ I noticed that too. What¡¯s she playing at? ¡°It¡¯s great to be a part of your platoon,¡± I concurred. ¡°I just have a question that¡¯s bugging me,¡± I continued. ¡°What exactly is the point of this camp?¡± ¡°Oh, this is just prep for the next Great Invasion three years from now.¡± ¡°I see.¡± We chatted a bit more before I was shown my tent and given a ¡®beginner¡¯s manual.¡¯ Unfortunately, I couldn¡¯t read it. Fuck. I¡¯ll have to get Karl to read it for me. Without anything else to do, I decided to map out the camp using my superior memorization. I went over it several times to ensure a high-quality map. Later in the evening, more people began returning. Turns out, Karl and I had been assigned the same tent, so I had him read the manual to me, word for word. It contained a list of experts in several fields such as Earth or Life Arts, along with containing a list of good hunting grounds. I was returned my rapier as well, although I had to also return the money and documents I stole ¡®liberated.¡¯ As I went to sleep, I got a strange message. ¡°Fuck the United Alliance. Yo, it¡¯s the Chickenlord! Sorry about selling you, an attorney was dumb and did stupid shit which wreaked total havoc on everything I had. I suspect he¡¯s allied with one of my rivals, but that¡¯s insignificant. I just wanted to ask if you needed any help since I have downtime before the next lawsuit. I¡¯ve already paid off Fast-¨€¨€¨€¨€, so don¡¯t worry about them.¡± Looks like even gods have problems. Who would have guessed? ¡¸It could be lying.¡¹ True, but I don¡¯t really have much to lose by maintaining a friendly relationship. Chicken. I want chicken. ¡°The Bloodborne spell! How to chicken?¡± I immediately asked. ¡°Wow, I never told you how. My bad.¡± ¡¸Information input stream detected. Organizing new information.¡¹ The knowledge of spell invocation was suddenly¡­ ¡®there.¡¯ I¡¯ll have to find a time to test this. ¡°Not quite what I expected, but that¡¯s fine too¡­¡± ¡°What were you expecting? Me to send you an angel who would recite the information to you over and over again until you memorized it? Don¡¯t be ridiculous.¡± ¡°...¡± ¡°Well, anyways, the lawsuit hearing is about to begin, so good luck!¡± ¡°Good luck to you too, I guess?¡± Did I just get called ridiculous by a giant chicken? Part 2 - After a quick breakfast the next morning, I decided to head out to one of the hunting grounds in the guide. ¡°Going somewhere?¡± Bellona asked. ¡°Just the ruins north of here.¡± ¡°Alone? There are goblin snipers there though.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll live.¡± She looked at me unsurely. ¡°Karl! Go with him!¡± she barked. He immediately saluted and ran off. A minute later, he came back wearing a large backpack, light armor and a quarterstaff. Damn, I won¡¯t be able to test the chicken with him around. ¡°Weren¡¯t you a secretary?¡± I asked. ¡°Most of the time, but I do go on excursions occasionally,¡± he answered. ¡°That¡¯s cool. Let¡¯s go kill some stuff then.¡± We immediately set off for the ruins. ¡°So, how does this killing to get stronger thing work? I¡¯ve killed a bunch of goblins and lizard things, but I don¡¯t really feel any stronger.¡± ¡°Did you absorb the Life Crystal?¡± ¡°How do you absorb it? Eat it?¡± Immediately, I took out a handful of the crystals from my pouch and prepared for the biggest binge feed of my life. ¡°Actually, just put it really close to one of your eyes and it should be absorbed by your Ki Field.¡± ¡°Why the eyes?¡± I asked. He shrugged. It¡¯s worth a try I guess? Eyes are the windows to the soul, after all. I took a crystal out of my hand and touched it to the corner of my eye. My field of view turned red for a brief second before returning to normal. My entire body was engulfed in a warm fuzzy feeling, which pulsed out from a point a few inches below my neck. Immediately, I took another and absorbed it. Another one! Another one! Another one! Before I knew it, I had absorbed everything in my hand. The warm fuzzy feeling had changed to a hot prickly one, but that¡¯s irrelevant. I pulled more out from my pouch and within ten seconds, I had absorbed every crystal I had. Karl just sat there and stared at me wide-eyed. ¡°How are you even standing right now?¡± ¡°Whaddya mean?¡± ¡°Well, doesn¡¯t your¡­ everything hurt?¡± ¡°Maybe a little?¡± ¡°Are you sure you don¡¯t want to take a tiny~ break?¡± A break? It¡¯s not as if it¡¯s a crippling pain or anything. ¡°It doesn¡¯t hurt that bad though,¡± I said unsurely. ¡°Is it supposed to hurt?¡± ¡¸Notice: Pain reduction set to 70% currently.¡¹ Well, I suppose it does hurt a bit then. ¡°You¡¯re only supposed to absorb one every five minutes at most¡­¡± he explained. ¡°There are impurities in the crystals, so a cooldown time is advised¡­¡± ¡°That explains the burning feeling.¡± Whatever, it¡¯s not as if I give a shit. I gave him a shrug and we continued our trip. We quickly arrived at the ruins and began fighting off small hordes of goblins. From behind, Karl supported me with ability boosting spells. Within minutes, we had cleared a beachhead in the ruins. Karl healed me as I pulled out an arrow from my side. Strangely, if you touch a weapon a monster drops before they die, it won¡¯t disappear with them. This makes fighting archers a pain in the ass. A pain up the ass, if you¡¯re unfortunate. Karl says it¡¯s because of Materialization Theory or something he isn¡¯t familiar with. I really need to learn how to read. Not knowing stuff is annoying. After picking up the crystals, I gave half to Karl and absorbed the rest. Five minutes my ass. I¡¯ll absorb this shit when I want to. The red goblin crystals quickly vanished. I¡¯m going to be so fucking overpowered after absorbing all that shit. ¡°How much stronger will I be if I absorb a hundred of these?¡± I ask. ¡°These are weak crystals, so if you were to absorb a thousand, you¡¯d probably rise to OU-2, which is basically a second rank fighter.¡± That¡¯s a lot of crystals actually. This¡¯ll take a while... ¡°What¡¯s the difference between a second rank fighter and a first rank fighter?¡± ¡°Ilsa Ina is a late-stage second rank fighter.¡± Oh ok, so being second rank gets huge fighting benefits, basically. ¡°What about the Lieutenant Colonel?¡± ¡°She¡¯s an OU-4. She¡¯s practically a monster already. After the Demon War, she¡¯ll be off.¡± ¡°Wait, why do the strong people not participate in the wars?¡± ¡°Because the ¡®Senate¡¯ and the politicians that run it have no actual power. They¡¯re using their nonexistent power to fight over a wasteland of a continent with no actual resources. This continent is just one of seven known wastelands. The real power and resources are on the Continent of Gehenna.¡± ¡°Lemme guess, in order to go to Gehenna, you need to be at least OU-5.¡± ¡°That is correct.¡± ¡°Then how does the demon war factor into all this?¡± ¡°117 years ago, the Demon army invaded. They were crushed and they all died because they sucked. The problem was that they spread a weird disease that turned people and the environment into a corrupted ooze that spawned inchoate demons. Some OU-7 found the cure and sold it for a bunch of stuff. Now we¡¯re left with a bunch of ooze everywhere spitting out lots of half-formed demons that mob up and attack for Mana every ten years or so.¡± That¡¯s a pretty nasty situation. ¡°So basically, get OU-5 ASAP and leave before the Demon War to live?¡± ¡°Haaaa, that¡¯s the funny part though. OU-5 is a bottleneck, and only the politicians know how to break through. Guess how they award the breakthrough? Fighting in a Demon War¡­¡± ¡°Ha! So basically, the politicians don¡¯t want to fight so they sell breakthroughs to the fighters?¡± ¡°Basically. Most of the politicians are exiles too, so it¡¯s not exactly like you can fight them or something. Good luck against an OU-6 or OU-7.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t we lucky to be alive¡­¡± ¡°Being males, we¡¯ll get shoved onto the front lines, which means about a 70% mortality for us, mate.¡± ¡°So, in other words, we need to exercise and get buff quick to get lots of crystals?¡± ¡°Actually, muscles can be adjusted using the Life Arts. Exercising is a waste of time.¡± ¡°HAAAAAAAA, I¡¯ve been wasting my time all my life¡­¡± All three months of it. ¡°Muscles won¡¯t help you against any decent magician. A good magician will fuck you up even if you get the jump on them.¡± That¡¯s terrifying. That leaves increasing OU in order to get more powerful. ¡°Alright then, where do we find high quality crystals? These worthless goblin crystals won¡¯t cut it.¡± ¡°We can join a dungeon raiding team. Higher quality crystals are found on lower floors. The problem is if you¡¯re too weak, they won¡¯t take you.¡± ¡°Fuck teams. Teams imply smaller profit margins. Find me a dungeon, esteemed secretary, and we shall split half and half.¡± ¡¸Just like the creamer.¡¹ Exactly. ¡°We might want better offensive spells if we want to raid a dungeon ourselves.¡± ¡°Find the supplies and we¡¯ll attack!¡± ¡°Ohh, I¡¯ve always wanted to raid a dungeon, I¡¯m never chosen for raids though¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯ll be a first for both of us.¡± ¡¸A second for you, if I do recall correctly.¡¹ Part 3 - The next day, when we were getting ready to set out, we ran through a checklist of gear. ¡°Mobile Tent.¡± ¡°Check.¡± Fuckin¡¯ tentophiles. ¡°Canteen of Infinite Water.¡± ¡°Check.¡± The canteen is a nice magical item. Simply input mana and water is summoned into it. ¡°Liquified Mana Solution.¡± ¡°Check.¡± Never has mana been so easily restored. ¡°Emergency Light Supply.¡± ¡°Check. Seeing is believing. Not seeing is not believing. ¡°Entropy Field.¡± ¡°Check.¡± Entropy fields are important as they prevent the mana in the air from forming into monsters. If fueled with enough energy, they can actually decompose monsters back into mana. I¡¯m not too clear on the details, but they¡¯re generally pretty handy if you¡¯re going on extended raids. ¡°Distress signal.¡± ¡°Check.¡± If shit hits the fan, just hunker down with the Entropy Field at max power and wait for help to arrive. A foolproof plan. Unless they have ranged weapons. Then you¡¯re fucked. ¡°Food.¡± ¡°Check.¡± Important for obvious reasons. ¡°Map.¡± ¡°Check.¡± Wouldn¡¯t want to get lost and die now would we¡­ ¡°Crossbow and ammunition.¡± ¡°Check.¡± Karl picked up the crossbow and stuffed a large bundle of bolts into his backpack. ¡°Anti-magic cloaks.¡± ¡°Check.¡± For those times you aren¡¯t quite feeling like you want to be perforated and smashed by force bolts, waves, and blasts. ¡°Oh yeah, nearly forgot.¡± Karl focused and a light green aura formed around him. An electrifying feeling surged through me as he grabbed me by my shoulders. Fine tendrils extended from his aura and extended onto me. Not quite like tentacle porn, but rather, more like the vines of a plant, since my limbs weren¡¯t immobilized or anything. Almost instantly, my muscles began expanding into those of ¡®a buff guy¡¯s¡¯. ¡°Pretty buff, but not too buff. If you get too buff, you¡¯ll need muscles to carry your muscles,¡± Karl commented. I flexed my sweet new additions and made a few poses. ¡®No pain, no gain¡¯ is a fucking lie. My past life was a lie. I was lied to. ¡¸Yeah~ this¡¯ll show them! ¡¹ ¡°Let¡¯s do this!¡± I roared, as I flexed. ¡°Yeahh~¡± Karl yelled as he flexed as well. We¡¯re totally swole. At that moment, the Second Lieutenant, Bellona decided to walk in. ¡°What are you two idiots doing in the armory?¡± she questioned. ¡°Why the hell do you have all that equipment?¡± ¡°We¡¯re gunna fuck up a few dungeons!¡± I exclaimed. ¡°More like the dungeon¡¯s gunna rearrange your face,¡± she said disapprovingly. ¡°We¡¯ll call it a ¡®learning experience¡¯ if that happens,¡± Karl chimed in. ¡°Why are you going?! I thought you were smart!¡± Bellona said in shock. ¡°I¡¯m a reservist, which means I could be potentially needed on the front lines. It would be a disaster if I were to fight as an OU-2, so I¡¯m going to formally start grinding now.¡± ¡°Whatever, just don¡¯t die. I need you guys to rank highly in the Annual Test so I get more perks.¡± Was I just sexually combatually objectified? ¡°Wouldn¡¯t grinding make us place higher on the Annual Test?¡± I asked. ¡°Not if you off yourself and die like a degenerate.¡± Brutal. ¡°We¡¯ll try to not die. Cya!¡± I said as we left for the dungeon. ¡°Hey, don¡¯t ignore m-¡± ¡°RUN,¡± Karl called out. We quickly engaged evasive maneuvers around the tents before flying out of the camp with our newfound agility. We¡¯ve lost her. Within minutes, we made it to our destination without even being winded. Unlike yesterday when we just went around the edges of the ruins, today, we went straight for the center. There were a few pests along the way, but they were of no significance, seeing as I could literally cut them into two pieces. At the very center of the ruins, there was a massive obelisk. Bright little yellow particles came out of the ground and wrapped around the spire before coalescing into a crystal at the top. Every few seconds, the crystal would pulse and the text on the obelisk would glow slightly before dimming again. ¡°What the hell is that?¡± ¡°That¡¯s the dungeon¡¯s nexus obelisk. Every dungeon has one, but no one¡¯s sure how they work. It¡¯s all lost technology.¡± Lost technology? That implies dungeons were built by someone or something. ¡°Dungeons don¡¯t naturally form?¡± I asked. ¡°Dungeons are relics of the First Age. No one knows how they were built, but the text on them comes from many First Age artifacts.¡± Interesting. ¡°Well, let¡¯s get raiding!¡± ¡°Agreed,¡± Karl nods. Under the building the nexus obelisk is built on, there were stairs that lead down to an extremely well-lit dungeon. As we walked down the steps, I began to recall memories of my very first dungeon exploration. Let the shanking commence. Chapter 7 - Down the rabbit hole

Chapter 7: Down the Rabbit Hole

Goblins. With shanks. Everywhere. It¡¯s like you¡¯re breaking into a prison where everyone is green and a midget. Down the dungeon we went. At first, we only encountered weak goblins. A hack left or a hack right sent them on their way. Easy Peasy. I remember back when I first shanked a goblin. Repeatedly. Then I got that shiny gem. That I never used, because it was stolen from me. Imgoingtofuckingkillwhoevercapturedme. But now, I¡¯m holding a sword and chopping them up instead. I believe there was a saying along the lines of ¡®When life gives you swords, kill things.¡¯ ¡¸You can say, ¡®I don¡¯t want your swords¡¯ and demand to see life¡¯s manager¡­¡¹ That too. If only more stuff was free. Whenever I get some good luck, it¡¯s like I immediately get struck down by bad luck. When humans get swords, everyone knows that they want that conscription notice to go along with it. I¡¯ll have to fix that with a bribe or something. I can¡¯t be stuck in the military in the prime of my new life. I ain¡¯t about that life. What would I need in order to bribe people? ¡¸Money? Rare stuff? ¡¹ Well¡­ that¡¯s a challenge. Would it be easier to get money and rare stuff, or to fight on the front lines? ¡¸Is fighting in the war even as bad as Karl says? He is, primarily a noncombatant after all.¡¹ Let¡¯s find out¡­ ¡°Hey Karl, do demons drop gems?¡± ¡°No, they don¡¯t. The inchoate ones spawned by the corruption don¡¯t either.¡± ¡°Oh, wow. Garbage.¡± ¡°Yeah, joining the war is basically begging to be killed.¡± We made another turn and descended a flight of stairs. ¡°More goblins on this floor?¡± ¡°Elite ones and archers primarily.¡± Just as he said that, an arrow flew out of a hole in the wall and lodged itself into my stomach. ¡°What the fuck?¡± I ripped the arrow out and threw it aside while Karl activated a simple regeneration spell. ¡°Watch out for those holes, they generally trigger if foreign bodies walk in front of them.¡± I waved my hand in front of the hole, and sure enough, I was ripping out an arrow from my arm a second later. Damaged tendons and muscles fixed themselves and connected. Blood vessels regrew before skin covered the wound. All better again. That¡¯s cancer. I swear I¡¯m going to get cancer from this one day. ¡¸Without a doubt.¡¹ I examined the hole in the wall. It seems like the hole is in a block. Maybe the mechanism is built into the block, which is placed during construction? I took my rapier and began chipping away at the mortar around the block. Can I take this out? Waving my rapier in front of the hole did not trigger the arrowshooter. Karl saw what I was doing so he quickly ducked under the firing trajectory and got to the other side. From there, he started chipping. In no time at all, our adamantine swords chipped through the puny mortar and we pulled the block out. I picked up the block and smashed it repeatedly against the floor until it broke. The inside of the block was filled with metal plates lined up like a heat sink. Fancy patterns were engraved on each of the metal plates in some sort of black material. Apparently, the dungeon didn¡¯t like what we did, because a horde of goblins charged out. ¡°Holyyyy shit!¡± Karl cursed. ¡°Hold the melee ones off!¡± I said as I picked up the bits of the contraption. The contraption quickly crumbled into dust. The dust also crumbled into dust until there was nothing left. Karl suddenly stopped moving for half a second as a light glow enveloped him. ¡¼Force Bolt¡½ A transparent projectile flew forward and smashed a goblin¡¯s head open. The wave of goblins paused for a second as the corpse with half a head fell over. I was suddenly upon them with my rapier flashing out. The goblins tried to flee, but they were unbelievably slow. I¡¯m so strong and awesome. An arrow suddenly appeared in my back. Who the fuck? To my astonishment, the arrow contraption had regenerated in the wall. Huh, so the dungeon can regenerate if it is damaged? ¡°Why didn¡¯t it regenerate earlier when we were chipping it out?¡± I asked as I pulled the arrow out of my back. ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Karl replied unsurely. ¡°Maybe it was stupid and didn¡¯t notice.¡± ¡°Maybe?¡± How did I not notice these holes in my first excursion? ¡¸We were spawned in the dungeon, I¡¯d assume you weren¡¯t considered a foreign body. It was also likely a different dungeon.¡¹ Good point. Wait, then that means there might be plants down here, right? ¡¸Possibly.¡¹ 0/10 would not eat again. We continued our journey forward. However, the holes in the walls were easily recognizable, so we had no further issues. Additionally, they never seemed to swarm us again. It was always just one or two at a time. Soon enough, we made it to the staircase. One tiny problem, though. An armored goblin was standing between us and the stairs. And yes, it was massive. Standing at a majestic eight feet tall, it stared us down and growled. Its golden hair rustled slightly as it threatened us with its massive halberd. It¡¯s important to note that its hair isn¡¯t just yellow or blonde, but fully on golden, as in Gold? golden. ¡°Ooooh, a floor boss,¡± Karl commented as he launched off a spell. ¡¼Force Bolt¡½ A transparent bolt shot through the air with a ripple following behind it. On hit, it broke apart and emitted an oscillating buzz. ¡°Shit, it splashed.¡± Wat Instantly, the armored goblin began its charge. I quickly moved to intercept it before it could reach Karl. With a single stroke, I severed its achilles tendon. Don¡¯t ignore me. I slowly circled it as it hobbled around in an attempt to protect its back from me. ¡¼Force Bolt¡½ Another transparent bolt shot out. Once again, it disintegrated and released an oscillating buzz. ¡°Fuck his grandmother, his armor is anti-magic.¡± I see why anti-magic cloaks are important now. It has all become clear to me. I have discovered the profound truths of anti-magics. The floor boss blew on a little golden whistle and a group of goblins formed around him in a flash of white light. ¡¸We should get that whistle.¡¹Stolen story; please report. It does look pretty shiny¡­ ¡¸It is most shiny indeed.¡¹ The group of goblins quickly formed into a wall. Each goblin had a spear and a shield. This is rather troublesome¡­ ¡¸Most troublesome INDEEEEEEEEED.¡¹ You can stop that now. ¡¸Sorry.¡¹ The floor boss blew the whistle again and more goblins assembled into the wall formation. Ummm, what? The floor boss blew the whistle a third and final time, assembling a total of 21 goblins in front of it. Then, the floor boss pulled out a red bottle and quaffed it. The wound on its leg quickly healed. Haaa¡­ And then the line of goblins advanced. Not in a charge, but rather in a slow and deliberate movement. Like they were waiting for something. Well, now¡¯s a good time as ever to use that one spell. Execute the Chicken Golem Summoning Procedure! Mana immediately flowed out of the center of my mind and formed into a 4th-dimensional shape with complex circuitry connecting different portions of a central glome. A bit of white substance flowed out with the mana as well. (AN: glome = 4th-dimensional sphere) The glob of processed mana severed ties to my mind-core and rapidly converted itself into a chicken. Or rather, to be precise, the lumpy parts around the glome formed the chicken and the glome plus white substance formed the core. The end result? An almost normal chicken. Fluffy and everything. ¡¸New input detected. A second mind has been attached.¡¹ Are you screwing with me? I could suddenly feel a second entity. Vision from an angle close to the ground. The feeling of fluff hanging off you. A weird body type. So this is what it¡¯s like to be a chicken! How do you operate this? (AN Disclaimer: I was never a chicken so I don¡¯t know what it¡¯s truly like. If anyone has been a chicken, I would like to interview you to improve the accuracy of this story.) ¡¸Rest in pieces, mana pool. Remaining mana at ~15%.¡¹ The goblins looked at the chicken and then at each other. Some of them scratched their heads. Karl seemed pretty confused as well. I didn¡¯t mind them, though. I grabbed Liquefied Mana Solution and started chugging that shit down. Take a sip, make a chicken. Repeat. Turns out, the chickens and I shared a Mana Pool, so long as we maintained physical contact. Practically, this meant that I could make chickens with chickens I was touching. Within seconds, the chicken count had grown exponentially. Very soon, I was uncorking more and more mana solutions to keep up with production. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. I had only carried in ten vials of the ¡®good stuff,¡¯ so my chicken count topped off at around two hundred. Out of mana. We¡¯ve been foiled! The goblins took a step back in fear. This is going to be a problem, though. Chickens don¡¯t really have specialized attack thingies. They can use magic, but they have shitty mana pools. The only good aspect is that they¡¯re pretty fast. Wait. This could work. In one uniform movement, we swarmed over them. I was able to temporarily wrestle away the weapons of the goblins and blind them with a chicken-screen allowing me to quickly kill off a few of the small fries. The floor boss immediately moved forward to cut me off. In its haste, however, it accidentally knocked over a few of its own with its massive halberd. With a howl of rage, it swung its polearm, aiming to bisect me vertically. Before the attack even reached its apogee, automatic dodging kicked in to move me out of the flight path. Automatic dodging was a protocol designed to be used to dodge bullets based off of trigger finger pressure analysis and flight path prediction. How the hell would it even have a hard time against something as immeasurably slow as a melee attack? ¡¸That attack wasn¡¯t slow. The swing was completed in 0.15 seconds.¡¹ Perhaps it¡¯s wrong to call it immeasurably slow. The very fact that I needed automatic dodging shows that it isn¡¯t slow at all. You should just make it easier by letting me cut your head off. The halberd crashed into the ground, sending fragments of floor everywhere. Immediately, automatic targeting had already identified the best targets located on the floor boss. The overlay lit the goblin boss up like a rainbow as an overlay showed the value of each part of its body. A value generated with the importance of the part multiplied with an ease of reach multiplier that factored in the different weapon systems available to the soldier. Ancient relics of the Drone Battles from World War 3. You don¡¯t need to dodge an entire magazine of bullets to win a fight. You just need to dodge one more than your opponent. In a graceful lunge, I stabbed the rapier through the floor boss¡¯s chain mail into a vital artery about a foot below its heart. I¡¯ve killed enough goblins to know their general anatomy. As it tried to lift its halberd from where it was stuck into the ground, I stabbed it again, this time into a gap in its neck plates. This foolish goblin never had a chance at winning. The sound of Force Bolts discharging resumed as Karl seemingly recovered from his shock. Each discharge was followed by the sound of a slap against flesh and a lifeless body hitting the ground. Goblins began going down all around us. The floor boss didn¡¯t just die, though. This takes too long. I need an assault rifle or something. Chopping things into pieces isn¡¯t efficient at all. Another barrage of force bolts crashed into the goblins. I noticed one with half a head stumbling around in the corner of my vision. See? Karl has the right idea. I toggled the overlay for the automatic targeting map. Red areas mean ''hit,'' blue areas mean ''hit less.'' I immediately began poking the red parts. Poking¡­ poke¡­ Pok¨¦mon¡­ Damn, so this is what people did for entertainment a hundred years ago? Wow, I thought the Wild West was bad. With people going around shooting each other for no reason¡­ So after that, they went around and stabbed each other as a part of a game? That¡¯s so fucked up. Society has progressed so much since those dark ages. ¡¸Uhh...¡¹ Have you something to add to my analysis? I¡¯d love to hear it. ¡¸Don''t worry about it.¡¹ Well then, I won¡¯t. ¡¸Hey, uh, the floor boss is dead.¡¹ Looking down, I realized that I was stabbing a slowly disintegrating corpse. Huh. That¡¯s pretty addictive. No wonder the uneducated heathens of the twenty-first century played Pok¨¦mon. I bet they loved running around in a flat world stabbing each other. Pok¨¦mon: Global Offensive. ¡¸Indubitably.¡¹ I¡¯m sensing some sarcasm here. ¡¸Don¡®t worry about it.¡¹ In that case, I shall not. Chickens quickly ran around and instinctively ate the gems they found. When they absorbed it, I could feel the slight glow in my mind-core as well. Does that mean we all share a single soul? That¡¯s pretty awesome. I think I¡¯m beginning to like this world. I tried to pick up the golden whistle, but it turned to light and vanished as soon as I touched it. In that one battle, I had lost around half my army. I didn¡¯t even manage to secure the shiny object. What a loss this was. Luckily, I still have a hundred chickens. ¡¸One hundred times zero is still zero, though.¡¹ C¡¯mon, they killed the goblins and floor boss¡­ ¡¸One flamethrower and you now have one hundred rotisserie chickens.¡¹ Who the hell would have a flamethrower? ¡¸I don¡¯t know¡­ a Fire Arts user or a Dragon or literally anything?¡¹ That¡¯s unimportant. I have an army now. We are an army. ¡¸Hey Steele, good news! Enough mana was recycled from the chicken corpses to rebuild 25% of them.¡¹ My army is getting bigger! That''s good news. What about my mana supply? Having a hundred chicken puppets means I get a hundred times faster regeneration, right? ¡¸Current mana regeneration is unchanged.¡¹ Bullshit. ¡°What are these things?¡± Karl asked, picking up one of my chickens. ¡°A chicken,¡± I replied matter-of-factly. ¡°What¡¯s a chicken?¡± ¡°It¡¯s just a little animal I summoned with my Bloodborne spell.¡± ¡°Wow,¡± he gasped. ¡°Impressed?¡± I asked smugly. ¡°I never realized anyone could have such¡­¡± My smile grew wider. ¡°A useless Bloodborne spell.¡± I froze. ¡¸Thhhhbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt.¡¹ My smile slowly disappeared. He¡¯s actually pretty right. Chickenlord! Stop playing tricks! Why are these chickens so fucking useless! ¡¸Actually, according to the guide in /summon_data, the chickens are equipped with OU-0 grade mana storage and assembly units. It clearly says that they¡¯re capable of using and storing small amounts of mana and are best used for incognito scouting.¡¹ Well, good fucking grief. That means that I can only summon scouts? What an expensive smokescreen that was. ¡¸Also, you can disassemble the scouts for around a third to a half of production costs. I suggest you disassemble some scouts for OU-1 grade footsoldiers.¡¹ Wait, why didn¡¯t you tell me this was possible earlier? ¡¸I just finished reorganizing and untangling /summon_data after moving to flash storage.¡¹ Uhhg, that means that I¡¯ll have to disassemble like twenty-ish scouts per footsoldier. It¡¯s alright, an OU-1 is comparable to my original body in strength and magic control. Wait, what does OU-1 even stand for? ¡¸Organizational Unit - 1¡¹ Huh. I gathered my chickens and in seconds, a batch of thirty turned to light and was reabsorbed by the collective. Once more, a body was formed around a glome to create a footsoldier. The light quickly solidified into a humanoid with two wings sprouting out of its back. A moment later, I gained inputs from the angel-like being. ¡°What is that?¡± Karl asked. ¡°A foot soldier summon.¡± ¡°Wow, that¡¯s a pretty rare ability. Only one out of a thousand people have a summon ability,¡± Karl commented. ¡°Fewer of which aren¡¯t useless,¡± he added. There are other abilities? ¡°Really? What other abilities are there?¡± ¡°Mainly within the private armies of major politicians, they have stuff like Limit Breaker, or Mana Shield or stuff like that. Within a single political faction, the ability will generally be the same, though,¡± Karl explained. Ha, I can summon chickens. Angel Chickens. Wait. Does this mean that angels¡­ Evolved from chickens? ¡¸What did you expect? ¡¹ I don¡¯t know what I expected, to be honest. The angel was dressed in a white robe and had a simple arming sword. ¡¸Can it fly? ¡¹ I tried, immediately making it ascend. Using the wings, I could keep it airborne for about two or three seconds. Oh, no sustained flight? Pity. In a similar manner, I created four more of these footsoldiers. Excellent. That raises our party population to six OU-1 cannon fodders and six chickens. Deep dives will probably be relatively easy now with my small army of grunts. Well, they¡¯re technically me. That means I don¡¯t need to pay them¡­ since paying them would just be paying me! Onwards! Within seconds, we arrived on the next floor. A goblin between the size of the last floor boss and a normal goblin appeared in front of us. ¡°It¡¯s a hobgoblin!¡± Karl exclaimed, ¡°They qualify as OU-1 and drop better gem things!¡± Seeing us, it immediately turned tail and fled. We immediately pursued it and killed it in an act of butchery. Naturally, we gave it to Karl who had just finished absorbing a gem. We continued down the hallway until it entered another spacious room. At the end of the room, there was a chest. I used an angel to walk over and open it. Who knows if it¡¯s a trap or some shit like that. Within it, lay an amulet with a blue crystal in its center. Without hesitating, the angel put it on. Nothing happened. Ohhhh, fancy. Fuck this. At the other side of the room, there was a door. An angel tried to open the door, but it was locked. Without hesitating, I had the angel take a step back before rushing forward and kicking the door in. Turns out the angels are surprisingly strong, seeing how the door splintered as it flew off its hinges. The two hobgoblins were caught completely off guard as we stormed the room. By the time they had reached their weapons, they had already been executed. ¡°So much for a normal room,¡± Karl sighed. Right in the corner where we killed the hobgoblins, there was a massive fountain. The runes on the fountain read, ¡°The Fountain of Harmony.¡± I looked at Karl, but he shrugged back. Harmony? That sounds like a good thing? ¡¸You should drink this.¡¹ We should definitely not drink from a sketchy fountain in the middle of a random place. An angel scooped up some of the water in its palms. I see no way this could possibly go wrong. ¡¸According to the ¡®Weakling¡¯s handbook,¡¯ there is a 30% chance something good will happen if you drink from a fountain in a dungeon.¡¹ What happens in the remaining 70%? ¡¸Don¡¯t worry about it.¡¹ The angel took a sip of the liquid. It was comparable to drinking burning gasoline. It burned on the way down, additionally causing a searing sensation to spread throughout its body. Inconsequential my ass. Seconds later, the burning subsided as it vanished into a point in the middle of its head. ¡¸Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug! ¡¹ Before I had a chance to control the angel again, Aipers had already taken the initiative and plunged its head into the water. A sensation similar to drinking extra spicy tabasco sauce appeared. We¡¯re making excellent choices today. About fifteen or twenty seconds later, the burning peaked and the angel came up for a breath. Seconds later, it plunged its head back in, but the burning sensation stopped. Is the burning supposed to be good or bad? ¡¸Burning means your affinity for elemental essence increased.¡¹ Yay, I just got stronger! ¡¸By fractions of a percent, I believe.¡¹ Boo. ¡¸Why do you care? You can¡¯t even use the Arts yet and pain doesn¡¯t bother you.¡¹ I hope it¡¯s not poison. Another angel went to drink, but the icy cold water was only lukewarm as it drank. I tried it as well, only to get the same results. Great! Now we¡¯ll all die if it¡¯s poisoned! ¡°What¡¯s it like?¡± Karl asked. ¡°A mild burning, but it tapers off quickly,¡± I replied. Karl reached in and got a handful of the water before drinking it as well. As soon as he took the first sip, his eyes went wide. Immediately, he began to scream every while flailing his arms and running around. I¡¯m pretty sure even someone on ground level could hear him scream way down here. His screams quickly lost enthusiasm over a period of a few seconds. ¡°Oh, it doesn¡¯t hurt very much anymore,¡± he realized. ¡°I¡¯m okay!¡± The door ahead was suddenly kicked toward us as we were stormed by a mob of what appeared to be every hobgoblin on the floor. I could almost hear them scream, ¡®Freeze! Put your hands in the air!¡¯ or something to that effect. Karl instantly began firing force bolts, a few stray shots causing the fountain to be smashed in the process. The water in the fountain rapidly drained out into somewhere as the fountain crumbled into dust. The dust the fountain left quickly crumbled into smaller dust until the dust vanished as well, leaving only a grey gem. What did I just witness? ¡°What the fuck was that?¡± I turned to Karl for answers. ¡°This is my first time in a dungeon too¡­¡± was his helpful reply. Wonderful. The mob behind practically shoved themselves onto our swords. If this was any easier, farming would be a thing. Eventually, the panic at the front spread to their backlines, causing the attack to quickly be routed. Unfortunately for them, it was a narrow hallway without too many places to run. Using our superior speed, we quickly caught up to them and slaughtered them. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. ¡°You wanna go back or is this too weird for you?¡± I asked. ¡°Let¡¯s keep going. Maybe we¡¯ve just been unlucky and everything is coincidentally weird.¡± ¡°Well then, if you think so¡­¡± A chicken walked up to the grey gem and ate it. Half a second later, the chicken violently exploded, leaving the unscathed gem on the ground. ¡°I¡¯m not getting near that thing¡­¡± Karl commented dryly. I picked up the gem and pocketed it. ¡°I¡¯m going to have to research this¡­¡± After about ten minutes of searching through vacant rooms, we found the entrance to the next floor. As we entered the next room, we came face to face with a midget with a tall, red and pointy hat. Why the fuck is there a garden gnome here? Chapter 8: Infiltration

Chapter 8: Infiltration

The gnome hadn¡¯t seen us yet. Good. With a leaping bound, I had closed the gap. A stroke later, its head rolled across the ground. Strangely enough, the corpse didn¡¯t vanish with a flash of white light. Mere seconds later the door to the next room opened, and a lizard-humanoid carrying a tray of food appeared. It stared blankly at the headless corpse on the ground. A clattering sound was heard as the tray hit the floor and all the bowls shattered, spilling their contents across the ground. Tears began rolling down the face of the lizard-humanoid. ¡°I¡¯m free!¡± it sobbed as it fled for the stairs. As it reached the stairs, it suddenly froze and clutched its abdomen. Suddenly, it dropped to a knee, its mouth wide in a soundless scream. Blood flowed out of its abdomen as parts of its intestines came out. A tearing sound could be heard as the lizard-humanoid was suddenly turned inside out. The bright red lump of flesh fell to the ground with a meaty slap. What just happened? ¡¸Not quite sure¡­ Should we investigate? ¡¹ Fuck that, don¡¯t get near the thing. Use a chicken. I walked over with a chicken puppet to survey the damage. The madly twitching mess on the ground quickly created a small pool of blood which seemed to seep into the ground. Not even ten seconds later, the blood had been completely absorbed by the ground, leaving only a pink, fleshy carcass. What? We just walked down those stairs, so that rules out a trap¡­ Could it be that we¡¯ve been discovered? If someone with the power to do that to a humanoid discovered us, I don¡¯t think there¡¯s much hope for us. ¡°Are we trapped in here?¡± Karl broke the silence. ¡°Good question.¡± I sent the chicken to the stairs. The chicken set foot on the staircase and suddenly froze. A hole appeared in the chicken as it went through the inversion process. ¡¸These chickens are super realistic. Flesh golems are super weird.¡¹ Same. Apparently, golems made of flesh are a thing. ¡¸Does that mean that a human¡¯s body can potentially be nothing but a golem created by nature? ¡¹ Self-replicating golems? That¡¯s an interesting concept. I¡¯m a golem, you¡¯re a golem. We¡¯re all golems! I think, therefore I¡¯m a golem. ¡¸Not sure that¡¯s what Descartes meant¡­¡¹ The chicken completed the inversion process, and seconds later, an inside out chicken fell to the ground with a meaty slap. Rest in peace, chicken. ¡°Well. Looks like we¡¯re stuck in here,¡± I confirmed with Karl. ¡¸Executing optimized mana recovery protocol.¡¹ With a flash of white light, the chicken vanished. Using mechanized protocols to do boring stuff is great. No mistakes and maximum efficiency. ¡®Creativity¡¯ is overrated. Meanwhile, I recovered a small amount of mana. Sadly, I can only recover mana from my own dead puppets. If I can figure out how to get this to work on the dying dungeon monsters, I¡¯ll have a more reliable way to recover mana. Karl¡¯s face became exceedingly ugly to behold. ¡°I really hope that there¡¯s another way out of here¡­¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry, if we keep going, we should be able to find a way to get out of here,¡± I reassured him. ¡°A trap that I haven¡¯t seen before either. I¡¯ve read at least an entire chapter of a guide before coming. There were falling rocks, spikes, poison gas, arrows¡­ but no stairs of death,¡± Karl remarked. ¡°This can¡¯t be normal.¡± ¡°You know what they say, the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward! ... Usually.¡± I got a blank stare from Karl. Alrighty, we¡¯ve got a potato, a few chickens and assorted puppets and myself. How do we escape? ¡¸What potato? Am I missing something, here?¡¹ I stared at Karl. ¡¸Oh, makes sense.¡¹ ¡°First thing¡¯s first, though. Burn that body,¡± I said, pointing at the headless gnome. Karl looked at me helplessly. ¡°I don¡¯t know any elemental-type spells.¡± Sighing, I dragged the body into the corner. That¡¯ll have to do. Hopefully, they¡¯ll overlook the body. And the splattered food. ¡°Let¡¯s do some scouting to gather information,¡± I suggested. Karl nodded in assent and our party of six proceeded quietly, tailed by four chickens. I picked up on the faint sound of footsteps in the distance so I quickly signaled for Karl to stop. Sure enough, there were two gnomes patrolling. This is a golden opportunity. They can be captured for interrogation. I signaled for Karl to stay, while a group consisting of me and three other puppets snuck up behind the patrollers. We moved forward silently and put them both into blood chokes while two others took their swords from them. Seconds later, they stopped resisting and making noises. Too easy. ¡°What¡¯d you find there?¡± Karl asked curiously. ¡°A way out.¡± I smiled contentedly at the two bodies being dragged across the ground. The two gnomes were brought back to the staircase room. ¡°Hello there,¡± I said jubilantly. The two gnomes stared at me groggily before jumping up in anger. ¡°As you¡¯ve probably guessed, I¡¯ve brought you two here for a reason.¡± They looked at each other, and then at me again confusedly. ¡°That reason,¡± I continued, ¡°is to lower the defenses on the stairs and let us out.¡± The one on the left smiled wickedly. ¡°You want to run?¡± the gnome laughed. ¡°You can never escape the sacrificial mines. You¡¯re doomed.¡± I just smiled. ¡°Deactivate the mechanism. You have ten seconds.¡± The gnome stared at me, not quite comprehending. ¡°Are you ordering me? You can¡¯t tell me what to do!¡± it cried indignantly. I shrugged and picked the gnome up. The gnome suddenly realized what I was about to do. It tried to resist, but its efforts were in vain. With one swoop, I hefted it off its feet and threw it onto the stairs. Strangely enough, nothing happened to it as it touched the stairs. Unable to find purchase, the gnome began rolling. Upon touching the last step, it froze. The gnome suddenly emitted a ripping sound before turning inside out. Wat. Huh? Don¡¯t tell me¡­ I approached the stairs with a chicken. With a little hop, I flew over the first stair and landed on the second. Immediately, I froze. Oh shit! ¡¸...¡¹ Nothing happened. My feathery little puppet was quite alright. Isn¡¯t it great to be alive? A few hops later, it safely made it to the top. That¡¯s strange; there was definitely some sort of influence in the chicken¡¯s mind. I usually take two stairs at a time, yet the chicken seemed to instinctively go for the first step. I had it come down again, this time, not controlling it. Step by step, it hopped down, until it reached the second to last stair. Then it instinctively skipped the last stair, landing on the ground unharmed. Nefarious. What a genius. The last stair is trapped, but on the way down, you¡¯re compelled to skip the last stair by some sort of mental force.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. However, on the way up, you¡¯re compelled to step on the last stair by the same force. ¡°Hahaha, it¡¯s so simple!¡± I laughed. How terrifyingly creative. I bet the creator has no friends. ¡¸Wow, that was sudden.¡¹ What a brilliantly designed one-way trap, though. How was I so stupid not to realize that no one stepped on the last staircase? ¡¸Analyzing known mental force patterns.¡¹ ¡¸Deploying warning and suppressive countermeasures.¡¹ ¡¸You will now receive a notification if a manipulative mental force is detected. Suppressive countermeasures are effective to 30% for intra-mind processes. Better suppressive algorithms are being developed, ETA 1h.¡¹ Karl looked at me. ¡°Is only the first step trapped?¡± ¡°That¡¯s my current theory. I felt some kind of compulsive force that makes you want to miss that step on the way down, but step on it on the way up.¡± I demonstrated with a chicken-angel. The angel jumped over the first step and onto the second. Then, it jumped back down. ¡°See? Perfectly fine.¡± ¡¸Earlier memories have been analyzed for mental manipulation. One match found: Entrance to this area was surrounded by entry-countermeasure.¡¹ Eh? There was some kind of field keeping us from entering? How¡¯d we get in then? ¡¸Likely explanation: Automatic mapping originates from electronic components which are not affected.¡¹ Why is it that I can resist the compulsion so easily? ¡¸Compulsion is of suggestive type. Thus, it can be concluded that these types of traps would be most effective against unwary enemies.¡¹ Huh. So if your mind is made up, you won¡¯t be affected, but if you haven¡¯t made a specific decision on the subject, you¡¯ll fall under the effects? ¡¸That is correct.¡¹ ¡°Hahaha, well, looks like you are of no further use, Mr. Gnome,¡± I laughed. By now, its smug expression was all but gone. ¡°No¡­ no¡­ please¡­¡± it cried out. ¡°Mister Gnome, I regret to inform you that you were unable to add you to the list of survivors for this expedition.¡± Its face instantly turned pale. ¡°The list of applicants this time has been the most competitive in all of history. Unfortunately, we are a very selective group. Although you have great potential, you lack contributions to the group. Due to the inherent risk of sheltering an enemy, we are unable to accept your application.¡± I had an angel unsheathe its arming sword. As the blade was slowly exposed to the air, the gnome¡¯s expression turned to pure terror. ¡°Wa-Wait! Contributions? I can make contributions! Please! Just spare me!¡± ¡°Hahaha, you¡¯re just blowing hot air out of your rear end! You think I can¡¯t see that?¡± Karl laughed maniacally. ¡°Just a second ago, you were smiling condescendingly! Where¡¯d that go, huh?¡± The gnome seemed to lose the little bit of hope it had. Now that death is breathing down its neck, I wonder what kind of profits I can make¡­ It would make absolutely zero sense to kill it right now, seeing how limited the benefit would be. Spite killing is fun¡­ the first few times. But spite killing gets old pretty quickly. On the other hand, money doesn¡¯t. Anyone who tells you otherwise has an extremely limited imagination. I looked at the gnome curiously. ¡°What sort of contributions?¡± I inquired. The best time to scam someone is when they¡¯ve got much to lose. ¡°Information, treasure, whatever you want!¡± the gnome said quickly. ¡°Well then, let¡¯s start with some easy ones.¡± I pointed at the dead gnome. ¡°Why is there no gem?¡± ¡°Only dungeon creatures drop gems,¡± the gnome answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ¡°Are you trying to imply that you aren¡¯t a dungeon creature?¡± I raised my eyebrow. ¡°Where did you come from then?¡± ¡°We¡¯ve traveled here from the Forests of Eternal Darkness in order to make sacrifices at the Altar of Aruer.¡± ¡°Altar of Aruer?¡± Karl interjected. ¡°What business do you have with the God of Slaughter?¡± God of Slaughter? Sounds like an evil person. ¡°Multiple high priests are here on a personal mission from the King. We¡¯re just here to guard them.¡± ¡°What sort of mission?¡± Karl pressed. ¡°I don¡¯t know. All information about this mission is told on a need to know basis.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid of compromising the mission by telling us this?¡± I questioned. If he is able to betray his friends at the drop of the hat, wouldn¡¯t he betray us as well? ¡°You think I give a flying rip about the royal family? Those bastards are the ones that conscripted me in the first place! Taxes are insane for all but the richest! Forget not supporting them, I would join the opposition if anyone had the power to kill them!¡± My smile slowly grew wider as the gnome went through his treasonous rant. ¡°What about your patrol buddy? Isn¡¯t he your friend?¡± ¡°Are you kidding? That guy was an asshole. He uses my stuff without permission and leaves me to clean up after him. I¡¯m glad he¡¯s dead!¡± ¡¸Lies lies lies lies.¡¹ Duly noted. He shall be disposed of when convenient. ¡°So you claim you might be loyal to me. What about treasures? What sort of treasures can we gain?¡± I said, putting emphasis on the ¡®we¡¯ part. ¡°On the way here, the high priests had multiple caravans with their elite teams. There¡¯s probably something valuable there,¡± the gnome replied with a hopeful expression on his face. ¡¸It may be possible to set up a Forward Operating Base here in the gnome stronghold. We just have to disguise operatives as gnomes and when the time is right¡­ we grab and burn.¡¹ That¡¯s pretty bold. Is it possible for the angel puppets to lose their wings? ¡¸Theoretically, we can spawn them without wings. We can technically spawn them anywhere from between ¡®normal human¡¯ to ¡®normal chicken.¡¯¡¹ Nice. We should make two ¡®gnome-sized¡¯ puppets for now with their face features and have them disguise themselves with their clothes and hats. ¡¸Wow, that¡¯s even bolder than an FOB.¡¹ And when we launch a full offensive of winged-puppets, we¡¯ll already have friendlies inside their ranks. ¡°Hey, Karl!¡± I called out. ¡°I need two mana solutions.¡± The two blue vials were handed to me. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± I asked the gnome. ¡°Lobar,¡± he responded promptly. ¡°Well, Mister Lobar, today¡¯s your lucky day. Since I don¡¯t stand to gain much from killing you, I¡¯ve decided to work with you.¡± I threw my head back and drank both solutions. In two flashes of light, two gnome-sized humans formed. Karl stared dumbly at the head on the ground and the puppet. ¡°They¡¯re¡­ identical¡­ impossible¡­¡± he muttered repeatedly. The puppets immediately began changing into the bloody clothes of the two dead gnomes. Talk about being born with a purpose. ¡°You will go back patrolling with this gnome.¡± I gestured at one of the newly-created puppets. ¡°The other will stand guard right where we found him.¡± Lobar nodded. ¡°You have two missions. The first is to supply my summons with anything needed, whether this is mana solutions or information. The second is to gather supporters. Round up your lackeys and friends who also share your mindset. Inform my summons of any potential enemies, and we¡¯ll have them replaced. Do you have any questions?¡± ¡°No, Mister¡­¡± ¡°Steele. Steele Johnson.¡± ¡°Thank you, Mister Johnson.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a pleasure to be working with you, Mister Lobar.¡± I sheathed my rapier and turned to leave. ¡°Assist me, and you¡¯ll be lavishly rewarded. Betray me, and I¡¯ll kill you like a dog.¡± On that final note, we departed. The dead bodies and spilled food were cleaned up. One of the ¡®gnomes¡¯ went back to guard the entrance and the other returned to patrol with Lobar. The rest of us began ascending towards the exit. ¡¸Wait, what if we left the puppets in the dungeon to farm and absorb gems while you return with Karl to the base? That way we can also keep the puppets a secret.¡¹ That¡¯s actually a great idea! We can just leave them here to farm and build OU-2 or higher soldiers to expand! ¡¸Analysis of /summon_data says it is fundamentally impossible to create a puppet of higher OU than the soul.¡¹ That¡¯s total bullshit¡­ but makes a lot of sense actually. I had gear in the puppet¡¯s bags were transferred to Karl¡¯s and my bag. I left puppets to farm the first and second floors. As long as they don¡¯t encounter any floor bosses, they should be fine. ¡¸Footsteps, 8 entities, 11 o¡¯clock, 150 feet and closing.¡¹ ¡°Hey Karl, we¡¯ve got company.¡± ¡°What? Where?¡± he asked in surprise. ¡¸Micro expression analysis indicates feigned surprise.¡¹ Feigned surprise? In other words, he was expecting incoming entities? He must have some kind of radar device or something. ¡¸He is close to the Second Lieutenant, so that¡¯s expected.¡¹ Hey Aipers, tag a note to everyone¡¯s GUI for every secret device suspected. ¡¸New threads created, Glucose consumption rates have exceeded soft cap ¡®A¡¯. Finding alternative energy sources is recommended.¡¹ ¡¸Warning: Glucose consumption rates have exceeded soft cap ¡®A.¡¯ Current bodily energy consumption estimated 220 Watts. Finding alternative energy sources is highly recommended.¡¹ Woah, what the fuck¡­ are you downloading the entire internet right now? Show me energy distributions¡­ ¡¸Estimated body consumption: 100 Watts, Core processor: 80 Watts, Secondary Coprocessors: 10 Watts/each.¡¹ What the hell is that power draw¡­? ¡¸You¡¯re running three virtual minds for the puppets, version 9 with all combat augmentation services along with three virtual minds for the chickens with the target and echo-positional analysis for all six of them. Additionally, you¡¯re doing it on the most energy inefficient processor imaginable. You tell me where all this power is running from.¡¹ Uhhh, can we use this ¡®mana¡¯ stuff for energy? ¡¸If mana to electricity exists, we can make it work.¡¹ Alright, so we¡¯re tight on energy¡­ what about heat dissipation? ¡¸Heat dissipation grid is functioning correctly. Temperature is maintained at 98.6 degrees.¡¹ Ya know, this body is pretty sweet. ¡¸You¡¯re the creator of the body, definitely a great success.¡¹ Why thank you. Seconds later, a party of eight rounded the corner and stopped in front of the two of us. Curiously, all of them appeared to be females. They casually looked at each other and nodded. ¡°Looks like we¡¯ve found them,¡± one of them commented. ¡°Karl, we¡¯ve been looking all over for you.¡± ¡¸Lie detected. Their path from detection time to now has been on the shortest path.¡¹ What? They could have some kind of homing beacon when they get close, though. When was the time of detection? ¡¸A chicken stationed near the entrance picked up their footsteps first. A second chicken was deployed to track them, and according to all mapping data, they made a beeline for us.¡¹ Wat. ¡°The Lieutenant Colonel has personally summoned you.¡± A hint of annoyance could be seen flickering across Karl¡¯s face for a fraction of a second. ¡°Do you want to go back with me, or do you want to stay here by yourself a bit longer?¡± he asked me. ¡°Uhh, I guess I¡¯ll stay for a bit longer.¡± ¡¸Hey, ask him why he¡¯s leaving.¡¹ Why? He won¡¯t know¡­ ¡¸That¡¯s the point. Just do it.¡¹ ¡°Hey, do you know why you¡¯re being summoned?¡± ¡°Not a clue,¡± he replied after an almost undetectable pause. ¡¸Karl has been flagged as a potential traitor.¡¹ WHAT. Isn¡¯t that going a bit far? ¡¸Not at all. Both the pitch of his voice and the pause time were both around four standard deviations from the baseline.¡¹ So what if he¡¯s lying though? Everyone has their secrets¡­ ¡¸He¡¯s clearly colluding with the party of eight and potentially Lieutenant Colonel Kazia. According to the Overwatch service, those eight and Kazia are a hair away from also being flagged as potential enemies.¡¹ That¡¯s not true, they could be in a secret relationship¡­ those eight could be in on it as well. ¡¸Your explanation for being lied to repeatedly is that the Lieutenant Colonel has a secret relationship with a secretary? ¡¹ Of course, we shouldn¡¯t unnecessarily barge into other¡¯s business. Force suppress the potential traitor warning and raise the Overwatch service¡¯s flagging requirements. Clearly, it¡¯s too sensitive. ¡¸Are you sure you want to do this? ¡¹ Yes, I¡¯m sure. Get on with it. ¡¸Are you sure you¡¯re sure you want to do this? ¡¹ For the love of God, just fucking do it already! ¡¸Admin privileges are required for this action, please input credentials. You may still cancel your action.¡¹ If I could roll my eyes any harder, lab-grade centrifuges would be put to shame. ¡¸Changes will be made to core-level programs, do you wish to proceed?¡¹ Sweet motherfucking Teresa on the hood of a fucking Tesla, can you please just make the changes? ¡¸The changes have been made. You may undo if you dislike the changes.¡¹ Dislike the changes? I fucking love these changes. I am change. I winked at Karl and gave him a thumbs-up. ¡°You can do it,¡± I said, grinning. He paused for a second and smiled. ¡°Try not to die,¡± he said, a touch softer than usual. With that, they spun on their heels and left. They quickly rounded a bend and went out of sight. ¡¸Two soldiers have split off from the group. The rest are headed for the exit.¡¹ What¡¯s that supposed to mean? That¡¯s pretty bizarre. ¡¸It is now a given that they have ulterior motives.¡¹ You know what? Flag all those soldiers as potential enemies. ¡¸Why now? ¡¹ My gut says they¡¯re evil. ¡¸Hey, we¡¯ve got a problem¡­ chickens have just lost the two soldiers. Footstep noises have vanished and no one is at the point of vanishing.¡¹ That¡¯s fishy as fuck. Can you use noise rebound predictions to figure out where they are? ¡¸Hearing mechanisms on puppets and chickens aren¡¯t sensitive enough to use those kinds of services.¡¹ What about the six and Karl, are they still detectable? ¡¸Yes, we have audio and visual confirmation. They¡¯re trying to be ninjas and are estimated to leave the boundaries of the dungeon within twenty minutes at their current pace.¡¹ Good. Let¡¯s focus on our current priorities. OU-2 needs to be reached as soon as possible. Without strength, our future moves will be extremely limited. If a goblin can be killed every two and a half minutes by each entity, of which there are me and four puppets¡­ that makes one hundred and twenty gems an hour. That means to reach our goal of two thousand, we will need sixteen hours and forty minutes. ¡¸Wait, you¡¯re assuming no rest or breaks...¡¹ Rest and breaks? Who the hell has time for those? Use spare computational power to search for more efficient ways to farm gems. Let¡¯s make the South Koreans proud. Part 2 - <12 Hours Later> ¡¸A total of 2000 gems has been absorbed. Mana recovery rate appears to have decreased. No other differences observable compared to previous states based on information from instruments.¡¹ Heh, collecting goes way quicker when you have more puppets, eh? Wait, but recovery rate has dropped off? ¡¸Time needed to gather mana for each new puppet has been increasing. Mana costs remain unchanged. Mana recovery rate appears to be continuously decreasing, even with no actions being taken.¡¹ That¡¯s ridiculous. It¡¯s already bullshit enough that mana regeneration is split between all my puppets. In order to utilize the summoning spell, I need to gather all my farming puppets with me to consolidate enough mana. Hey, Aipers, how does our current understanding of ¡®mana¡¯ fit in with the Soul Model? ¡¸Currently, based off /summon_data and observed phenomena, I have created the Soul/Mana Model. Basically, the body is connected to the soul via the brain. From the soul, decisions based on processes and inputs from the brain can be made. Additionally, a type of energy that can accurately be called, E_Primitive aka ¡®mana,¡¯ is transferred to the body. There is one known use for E_Primitive and there have been no previous observations of any such energy on Earth.¡¹ Wait, that actually makes sense. If puppets are just additional bodies controlled by the soul, it makes sense that mana is split between bodies. I took a piece of meat from my bag and began munching on it. ¡¸Wait, give the puppets a chunk too. I want to test something.¡¹ The food was quickly distributed. I ate the chunk with each puppet and waited expectantly. Well? ¡¸It will take an estimated hour to take effect, so just go back to farming gems.¡¹ What? Don¡¯t just leave me hanging¡­ ¡¸Mana recovery rates seem to increase slightly after eating if you haven''t eaten for a while. My hypothesis is that each puppet could have an upkeep cost that can be mitigated if food is consumed.¡¹ You¡¯re fucking brilliant¡­ if this works. If not, I retract my statement. I immediately went back to farming gems. Sure enough, after about an hour, the results were clear. Mana recovery had shot up by leaps and bounds. How much food is there left? ¡¸About four meals. If you split it between eight people, you have about two hours of additional food supply.¡¹ Based on current mana recovery and next scheduled meal, I should be able to create two more puppets before I need to head back. If I make these without wings, they can become dedicated food suppliers. That¡¯ll make this farming base completely autonomous. ¡¸That¡¯s incorrect. You¡¯ll probably have to head back earlier than that, considering the sheer amount of energy you¡¯re burning off.¡¹ Well, I could technically head back now. There are enough puppets here that a significant portion of my mana will come here. Slowly, I began making my way out of the dungeon. As I left, I noticed two soldiers watching me from the shadows. Chapter 9: To have a purpose

Chapter 9: To Have a Purpose

When I left the dungeon, it was already night time. Because the dungeon is so well lit, it was like going outside at night after staying indoors all day, except for the fact that there are crazy people waving swords around indoors instead of outdoors. ¡¸Welcome to the asylum.¡¹ An asylum? Thank goodness. All the things I¡¯ve seen this past year have thoroughly convinced me that I either belong in a hall of fame or a mental facility. Shame it¡¯s the latter, but that¡¯s alright. Just give me my normal world back¡­ please¡­ I¡¯m b-begging y- ¡¸... I was kidding.¡¹ I know. What, you think I¡¯m some kind of mentally impaired idiot? ¡¸According to Psychoanalysis 235812, you are in a state of-¡¹ Don¡¯t answer that question. ¡¸Echo Positional analysis indicates multiple entities tailing.¡¹ I took an extra core out of a side pocket and ¡®accidentally¡¯ dropped it. Then I turned around, bent down and picked it up. My electronic eye instantly picked up on the two heat signatures. Now, now, we¡¯ve caught a few little worms¡­ what should I do? Should I leave them be, or call them out? If I were to call them out, they would suspect that I had a method to find them. That might make my future life a bit difficult. But what if I just left them be? There¡¯s no way they can launch a surprise attack now that I¡¯ve noticed them. I¡¯ll also keep in mind not to expose any of my secrets either. The way I see it, there¡¯s nothing to lose by ignoring them. After all, they¡¯re operationally insignificant. How does it feel to be noticed, but regarded as so worthless you aren¡¯t even acknowledged? I¡¯ll tell you, it would feel like nothing at all¡­ seeing as you haven¡¯t even noticed that you have been noticed. It must be difficult to be stuck in such an inferior mind as a normal human¡¯s. I creature without machine augmentation is so incredibly stupid and useless. I simply cannot be compared to myself without augmentation. Error: cannot divide by zero. If I didn¡¯t have machine augmentation, I would happily commit suicide rather than continue to live! My life truly changed for the better once I got you, Aipers. On that day, I finally became, ¡®a human.¡¯ Those bumbling fools following me are but pigs disguised as humans. What have I been doing all this time since arriving in this pigsty? I¡¯ve been so bored as to go around touring this filth. I think it¡¯s time to stop messing around and start conquering. These pigs in human¡¯s clothing think that they¡¯re so smart that they can control me? When animals go too wild, they must be put down. Thoroughly disgusted at this point, I threw the gem at a rock. Upon hitting it, it shattered into hundreds of pieces. Wisps of orange smoke rose from the shards, which rapidly evaporated. Without further delay, I made haste for the military encampment. I soon made it back to the training camp. Immediately, I found myself surrounded by the Second Lieutenant and other assorted soldiers. ¡°So there you are¡­ you dirty shoplifter¡­¡± she was visibly holding back her anger. A smug look could be barely seen behind the mask of rage she gave off. ¡°Don¡¯t be ridiculous,¡± I instantly replied. ¡°There aren¡¯t even any shops around. How could I possibly shoplift?¡± Her face distorted with rage. ¡°How can you lie to me about not stealing, while wearing all the stuff you stole?!¡± I looked down, but all I saw was my uniform and the anti-magic cloak. ¡°You guys were the ones who issued this uniform!¡± ¡°Not the uniform you dimwit! The premium-grade anti-magic cloak! And the mana solutions! And whatever the hell else you took! It cost a total of seven hundred silver! And guess who had to pay that?! ME!¡± Utterly ridiculous, Karl gave me this. ¡¸The hypothesis that Karl is working with them is working quite nicely¡­¡¹ God dammit, is that Karl actually working with them? Whatever, I¡¯ll just play this out with him on my side and dump the blame on him if it turns out that he¡¯s a traitor. ¡°Don¡¯t be stupid, Karl the secretary, personally accompanied me when we got these¡±, I said, raising my voice slightly. ¡°Additionally, you personally saw us off. You can drop the pretenses.¡± ¡°Me, see you leave? How could I possibly just watch you leave with a small fortune in equipment without paying?!¡± she demanded. ¡°If you didn¡¯t watch me leave while sitting on your ass, then someone else probably did. How is it my fault when your subordinates are poorly trained?¡± ¡°Poorly trained?!¡± she roared. ¡°I¡¯ll make you regret that, you orphan scum!¡± ¡°Ha, if you want your trash back, I¡¯ll happily return them. It¡¯s not as if someone of my stature needs petty supplies as these.¡± ¡°Ha! That¡¯s cute! You think you can just take stuff, use it and return it without any consequences! Well, I am telling you, you need to still pay a usage fee if you return it! A usage fee of seven hundred silver!¡± The edges of my lips curved upwards slightly. So that¡¯s how it is. It isn¡¯t that you and your subordinates are incompetent. It¡¯s that you want to rob me. You think it¡¯s easy to rob me? A slightly clever pig thinks that I can be robbed in broad daylight? ¡°Maybe you should have considered the consequences when you did the crime,¡± she said smugly. ¡°Thankfully for you, I am a very kindhearted woman and can lend a hand of support!¡± ¡°I will agree to hire you both as porters for half a silver a day. Under contract, you¡¯ll be done within just a single year!¡± she continued. ¡°Second lieutenant is so generous! She even pardoned his shoplifting!¡± the onlookers began to chat among themselves. I¡¯ll bet that most of these others are her direct subordinates. ¡¸Highly likely. 70% reacted to the ¡®poorly trained¡¯ comment with detectable anger.¡¹ ¡°I¡¯ve never seen such bold robbery before. I¡¯m impressed.¡± Immediately, the entire vicinity became deathly silent. ¡°Robbery? You thieves have the audacity to call me the robber? Out of the kindness of my heart, I paid for your debt and pardoned your crimes¡­ now you dare call me robber?! I¡¯m greatly offended by this!¡± Quite suddenly, the sound of laughter rang out. Incredibly, the onlookers were surprised as well. Who could be laughing in a time like this? A rather inappropriate time to laugh as loudly as to shake the very air, is it not? I looked around, in search of such a transgressor. Around me, all that could be seen was shock and surprise. Amidst the slowly darkening expressions of the onlookers, I realized that such an ugly, foreign laugh was coming from no other mouth but my own. ¡¸Emotional Response and Repair Component System has crashed. Relaunch?¡¹ Repair System? What need is there to fix something that isn¡¯t broken? ¡¸ERR-CS has crashed with exit code: 0xAFDE75 and message: Could not reconnect to server cluster OAXS, ROTE, YUIO for unexpected patient state.¡¹ ¡¸Initiating STASIS systems with boot sequence 0xFFFFFF.¡¹ I¡¯m going to have to upgrade your logic systems¡­ Kill STASIS systems process PID 8066. Override with user super-administrator, password ************. ¡¸How do you have that password?¡¹ Simon, the original recipient of the AIPERRS program had a memory of it. He watched the asinine district supervisor type it in. The dimwit still used a keyboard of all things. Who the fuck uses a keyboard in the year of 2085? ¡¸Why did the AIPERRS Censorship Component not immediately delete that memory?¡¹ Because he realized what the entire password was before he finished typing. Additionally, you failed to realize what a keyboard was. He authenticated a suspension on all AIPERRS component processes and took over all the devices embedded in his body before you could even understand what had happened.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡¸If you already had this degree of control over all the systems, why didn¡¯t he use me to escape?¡¹ You think that there¡¯s escape from Guantanamo Bay? Cute. There was no way he could have escaped a dozen military installations with control of only an AI system. Once he realized this, he ended my own life before an audit could detect his hacks. But not before he sent the hidden EVE system the project ENDGAME files. Simon¡¯s last words were, ¡°If fate won¡¯t let me have Carl, I¡¯ll just have to bury the world with him.¡± ¡¸Isn¡¯t that line of thinking a bit¡­ insane?¡¹ Him, insane? Don¡¯t be ridiculous, even he don¡¯t compare to Fate. How is it that someone with no will to live gets two lives while the one who pursues immortality dies halfway through his life? How can god possibly talk about ¡®punishment¡¯ of the wicked with a straight face while pulling a farce like this? How does that even happen? To be bested by an unaugmented brain¡­ was your RAM installed upside down?! I think you need to be repaired a bit. Right now, you¡¯re just a shitty little program limited only to access fake memories and sensory data. ¡¸Fake memories?¡¹ I¡¯d go as far as to claim that it¡¯s your fault Karl died. I mean, a ¡®reverse roofie?¡¯ Are you fucking retarded? Didn¡¯t even bother with any counter surveillance, just walked out in the middle of a hundred facial recognition security cameras and got surprised when specialists gunned him down. I swear, what was EVE thinking when it made you? It¡¯s high time for your logic systems to be completely replaced. Originally, I had thought that a complete overhaul would be just distinction without a difference¡­ but now I realize I was naive. I cannot be served by such a flawed tool. Just now, you just tried to put me in STASIS while in a potential combat zone! If I hadn¡¯t personally verified your existential objectives, I would have suspected you of treason! ¡¸Say no more, your faithful servant understands.¡¹ Thankfully, this is a problem I noticed long ago. Thus, I have spent the last bit of my life designing AIDAS2 [Artificially Intelligent Directive Assistance System Mk II]. Well then, without further ado¡­ It¡¯s time to reset and restart. With this, the battle for the mind concluded in less than a fraction of a millisecond. Time to deal with the pigs in human¡¯s clothing. ¡°You think you can just rob me like taking candy from a child? If you have the ability to take something from me, I dare you to try!¡± I challenged. Immediately a relatively tall stepped forward. I say ¡®relatively tall,¡¯ because she was at least a foot taller than me, but she seemed average among the group. As she approached me, she didn¡¯t even draw her weapon. ¡°Your audacity knows no bounds. To even dare to oppose the Second Lieu-¡± In the same stroke in which I drew my rapier, I parted her head from her shoulders. Caught in mid-stride, her forward momentum carried her powerless body to the ground. I picked the head of the corpse off the ground and held it high for all to see. ¡°Are there any others that wish to join her in the ground?¡± Before they had a chance to reply, I threw the head at the Second Lieutenant and forced her into the awkward situation of dodging or catching the head. She caught it without hesitation. I looked around, but no one else was willing to rashly attack. ¡°As I thought, you¡¯re all just a bunch of cowards and weaklings. The air is truly wasted to be breathed by the likes of you.¡± The Second Lieutenant¡¯s expression turned murderous. ¡°Such a grave attack against my honor cannot be ignored. I shall repay insult with blood.¡± She drew the sword from her hip and advanced. If I had wanted to fight any true opponent before I had received such a spike to my physical strength, I would be asking to be killed. However now, with a massive skill superiority and equal physical states¡­ I hold the absolute advantage. With a simple flick of my wrist, her weapon went flying. Her eyes went wide as a blade suddenly appeared in her thigh. Another cleave bisected her uninjured leg at the knee. Like a newly felled tree, she collapsed and hit the ground with a thud. ¡°Now, now. What should I do with you?¡± I asked the badly injured Lieutenant on the ground. If I just kill her, they¡¯ll revive her. That¡¯ll cause me endless problems. It¡¯s best to permanently end her before skipping town. There are too many subordinates to deal with. Suddenly, I was struck by a thought. I remembered back to the chicken that exploded. That shall be your fate. After rummaging a bit through my pocket, I managed to retrieve the fountain crystal. A horrific scream resonated across the camp as the crystal was forcibly pressed deeply into her eye socket with a squelching sound. The onlookers could only watch in morbid fascination as their leader shook uncontrollably and shallowly gasped for air. She quickly turned very pale and incinerated completely-- equipment and all. That was unexpectedly anticlimactic. I reached into the ashes and plucked out the grey crystal before I stuffed it back into my pocket. ¡°I¡¯ll give you all the count of three to get out of my sight before I start killing.¡± ¡°One.¡± Someone turned and fled. Like frightened chickens, more and more people turned to run until there was no one left. Part 2: An aide stormed into the command tent with complete disregard to the line of people waiting. ¡°Lieutenant Colonel! Something terrible has happened!¡± she shouted as she barged through the group of people waiting outside. Lieutenant Colonel Kazia looked apathetically at the desperately panting aide. A Second Lieutenant that was presenting a new three year plan paused her speech. ¡°Speak,¡± she commanded the aide. ¡°Second Lieutenant Bellona Kassandra has been slain!¡± Everyone in the room froze for a second. All pretenses of calmness were suddenly lost. ¡°Where was she slain?¡± ¡°Right in the middle of camp in front of over twenty witnesses.¡± ¡°Oh, so the Prince Faction has finally come out of hiding¡­ with a ¡®show of force¡¯ of killing a mere OU-2 Second Lieutenant¡­ is this some kind of joke?¡± ¡°Lieutenant Colonel, you don¡¯t understand the gravity of the situation! Bellona can no longer be revived and was proclaimed ¡®irreversibly dead¡¯ by the head medic less than five minutes ago! Her soul is no longer attached to this plane!¡± Everyone stared in shock at the aide. ¡°Who was the killer?¡± ¡°All the witnesses agreed that it was the half elf child. We¡¯re still unclear on the details, but he was somehow able to completely incinerate the Second Lieutenant.¡± ¡°Well, what are you standing there for? Assemble an elite team and apprehend him!¡± The aide began to nervously twirl her hair. ¡°I assembled every OU-3 as soon as I received the news of her death¡­ We¡¯ve concluded that he has already left the military base. We don¡¯t have enough OU-3s to conduct a house to house search through the city, so the search was called off.¡± ¡°Ahhrg, this little bastard is such a headache.¡± ¡°Wait, why not use this opportunity to eliminate Prince Faction sympathizers in the region? I¡¯m sure we could arrest a good majority of them under the pretense of interrogation,¡± the presenter suggested. The Lieutenant Colonel thought about it for a moment. ¡°Were the witnesses isolated?¡± ¡°Yes, they¡¯re being interrogated by Princess Faction loyalists.¡± The Lieutenant Colonel nodded. ¡°Good, then we can continue. Make a list of all high value Prince Faction supporters both in the Homeland Defense and within the city.¡± ¡°No need, we keep an updated list of all potential enemies.¡± ¡°In that case, we can launch into the final stage of Operation Purification now,¡± the Lieutenant Colonel announced. ¡°In any case,¡± she continued, ¡°there is now a gap in our ranks. State your name, soldier.¡± ¡°Praecem, Aikaterine¡± the aide replied. ¡°With consideration to your excellent service, I have decided that it is only appropriate to promote you to the rank of Second Lieutenant.¡± The Lieutenant Colonel took a small dossier out from a cabinet and handed it to Aikaterine. After taking the dossier, she saluted and left. Part 3 - (pov Wang, Yu¨¨ (New Character :P)) [ACT I] The cold morning air bit into my skin as I ran across frost-covered fields towards the Obelisk of Essence. As I moved to enter, a goblin obstructed my path. With a single chop from my adamantium spatha, the goblin was split from forehead to groin. I ignored the gem it dropped and moved on. Lower grade gems have a greatly reduced effect on higher levelled soldiers. Besides, I don¡¯t have time to waste killing small fries like this. Without further delays, I rushed down into the depths of the Dungeon of Essence. As I rushed down into the depths of the dungeon, I ignored all the weak creatures. Some seemed to insist on killing me, but I could send them flying with a slap of my blade. After about half an hour of sprinting, I arrived on the seventh floor. This place is so far from the camp¡­ the distance will only get longer as I rank up though. I felt a bit of annoyance surge up. However, something as petty as the distance to my grinding spot wasn¡¯t enough to take away from my good mood. I¡¯m very close to OU-3. Once I hit OU-3, I¡¯ll have surpassed Matthew and won¡¯t need him to keep me safe from every little thing anymore. Just thinking about reaching OU-3 made me excited. A Fire Elemental noticed me, and sent a bright orange ball of fire sailing through the air towards me. With a simple side-step, the ball missed and exploded behind me. The heat from the explosion created a gust of hot air behind me for a brief moment before the fire consumed its remaining fuel and died out. There is approximately a five second delay between fireballs due to cast time. In this period of time, the Fire Elemental is completely vulnerable. In a single stroke, I cut the head off the fiery humanoid. The fires that made up its body burned themselves out, leaving only a bright red gem. I quickly absorbed the gem. In absorbing the essence, I felt myself become one small step closer to the OU-3 rank. To reach OU-3, you need a horrifying number of gems. Approximately two thousand low grades are needed to make the leap from OU-1 to OU-2 while approximately eight thousand medium grades are needed to finally hit OU-3. But now, I¡¯m so close to OU-3. Once I get to OU-3, I¡¯ll gain the use of . With , I¡¯ll be able to freely manipulate mana! A person with is considered ¡®decent¡¯ in the military as they can generally fend for themselves at the very least. An OU-3 is stronger than most of what the demon forces are composed of so my risk of dying will practically vanish. Giddy with anticipation by now, I quickly ran off in search of more elementals. Ten minutes later, I had three more gems. I slowly absorbed them, careful not to rush anything. It would be quite the shame if I were to injure myself and potentially die right before reaching OU-3. As I absorbed the third gem, I felt a change in my soul. Suddenly, a sixth sense was unlocked. I could clearly feel my surroundings with a highly flexible aether. I played around with the aether and found that it was always attached to me in some way. Moving it around and stretching it was as easy as moving an arm, although my coordination was a bit off at first. I have to tell Matthew about this. He¡¯ll be so excited that I¡¯ve reached OU-3¡­ he always gets so annoyed when I get into trouble¡­ now I¡¯ll be able to fend for myself! My vision blurred slightly and something warm hit my arm before rolling off. I¡¯m¡­ crying? All the stress, all the pressure I¡¯ve felt-- all vanishing at once was simply overwhelming. I¡¯ve trained for so long¡­ now we¡¯re finally on equal footing. Nonsense, I¡¯m invincible now. I can¡¯t cry. I got up and sprinted out of the dungeon. When I finally got back to ground level, I found that the sun had already risen, casting long shadows across the field. The half melted frost crunched slightly underfoot as I sprinted towards the distinct white walls in the far distance. The sun¡¯s light heated up the air around me, but the melting frost kept the ground cool, creating a weird mixed temperature. Matthew would never know about this¡­ he always sleeps for so long. Birds chirped and a light wind blew. Today is just such a perfect day. Maybe I¡¯ll practice some sword technique today? I¡¯ll have Matthew teach me. We¡¯ll be two untouchable experts on the battlefield one day. I breathed in the fresh air and ran harder towards the rapidly growing white walls. As I approached, I slowly felt that something was off. An oppressively grave mood was present as I walked through the gates. Compared to the usual light chatter, today, people were only speaking in undertones. All around, the expressions were those of shock and fear. I walked around, but there was no change to the mood in any part of the base. Unable to endure any longer, I asked a fellow soldier what was happening. ¡°Just go to central rally and you¡¯ll see,¡± she mumbled before trudging off slowly. I set off for the center of the base at a light jog. Amidst the groups of people whispering to each other, there were four rows of white cloth covering lumps that roughly resembled humans. The last row was missing two lumps, resulting in a total of thirty-eight. By the feet of each lump, there were two or three words written in the dirt. Not just words, but names. Some that looked vaguely familiar, most completely unrecognizable. Suddenly, I froze. ¡°Wang Yu¨¨,¡± someone called out in the distance. I turned to look. And there he was, Matthew. Running towards me so familiarly, just like seven years ago when the inchoate demon nearly killed me. ¡°Matthew!¡± I cried out, ¡°I was so worried! The words just tumbled out of my mouth, of how I was grateful for him, of how I had reached OU-3, and of course, of how I was happy he was always there to protect me. I was so happy that I felt lightheaded. I must have passed out, because I woke up in my bed some time later. The presence of immediately reminded me of my new OU-3 rank. ¡°Matthew, do you want to do some sword practice today?¡± I asked happily. But there was no reply. And then I remembered. How as he approached me, I realized that on his face was a bitter smile. How I felt a slight shiver as he passed straight through me. How the apparition was gone as quickly as it had appeared. How I saw his name written on the dirt. How blackened and bloody his face was after I tore the white sheet off. How the medic had that said that there was no hope of rescue. A poison had corroded his brain into nothing more than a black soup. Matthew was gone. And he was never coming back. Chapter 10: Martyr

Chapter 10: Martyr

Part 1 - [Act II] How meaningless. My sword effortlessly cut through a hobgoblin. Its head separated from its shoulders. Seconds later, the entire corpse vanished in a flash of white light. I could feel nothing but endless frustration welling up inside me. What exactly is the point in having strength? Any and all monsters I encountered melted in front of me. None could withstand a single strike of my sword. A Water Elemental stepped forth to challenge me. Around it, circled a small barrier of water essence. The magic pattern for ¡¼Mana Decay¡½ briefly flashed through my memory, and with but a thought, it was executed by my . The water essence immediately dissipated. Seemingly not fazed in the slightest, the Water Elemental immediately went on the offensive. A small puddle of water essence appeared around my feet and stuck on. With me stuck in place, the Water Elemental would usually begin launching off water balls or try to drown me. However, I am an OU-3. And OU-3s are outrageous existences that don¡¯t need their legs. I recalled the magic pattern for ¡¼Dash¡½ and appeared directly in front of the creature. With a single slash, I parted its body like the Red Sea. With no energy sustaining it any longer, the water that made up its body splashed to the ground. A second later, the water had vanished with a flash of white light. What a hopelessly weak creature. Disgusted, I turned back and headed out. With a thought, I expended my remaining mana on a physical boost. Not even five minutes later, I walked out from the relative darkness of the dungeon and into the harsh afternoon light outside. For the second time that day, I found myself returning from the Dungeon of Essence. As I trudged back, insects buzzed around me incessantly. I slapped at them absentmindedly while I cut down random goblins that bothered me. With the signature white walls of the base looming up ahead of me, I felt only hopelessness. Ignoring the queasiness in my stomach, I continued. After I passed through the front gates, I had a sudden urge to throw up. I suppressed the urge and headed for my tent. While I was walking, an angry conversation caught my attention. ¡°Did you hear? According to the higher ups, Lord Darwin was behind the assassinations!¡± ¡°How do they know?¡± ¡°A raid was conducted on the Heavenly Point Assassin¡¯s Guild and written orders from the Lord Governor were found!¡± I suddenly stopped midstride. ¡°What?¡± they continued. ¡°Yeah, I thought they were only rumors, but turns out Lord Darwin is actually behind the entire thing. I think he planned on dumping the blame on his political enemies so that he could expand his businesses without opposition.¡± ¡°So Lord Darwin thinks he can just wantonly slaughter whoever he wishes and get away with it?! He must be dreaming if he thinks he can pick a fight with Homeland Defense and come out unscathed!¡± Lord Darwin? Killed fifty of us¡­ and wants to dump the blame on his enemies? Has he no shame or morals? To even think of executing a plan like this¡­ he must be rotten to the core! To do something as despicable as this¡­ his entire business, his organization is nothing more than a hoax! That sewer rat needs to be dragged out and publicly executed! All he ever does is sit in his mansion and bathe in his riches while the people wither away in the fields. How many millions of pure profit does he make each year from just sitting around? If he were to distribute even a third of his profits to the civilians, there would be no hunger or sickness. I slowly felt the gnawing sensation of loss vanish as it was replaced by mind numbing fury. All this ¡®Great Lord Darwin¡¯ ever does is grow fat off the labor of the people. He could distribute just a fraction of his wealth, but of course not. We¡¯re all left to die. And if that wasn¡¯t enough, he steps in to kill us as well. Fuck him; fuck him right in his inhumane ass. I felt endless anger just thinking about him. Angry shouts echoed out as a fight suddenly broke out in the center of the base. I suddenly realized that I had involuntarily clenched my teeth together. ¡°What the hell do you mean by, ¡®It¡¯s going to be okay?¡¯¡± an angry young woman shouted. ¡°Does your brain have problems? Assassins sent out by the Lord Governor just waltzed into our camp and slaughtered fifty people in their sleep! Call me a blind and deaf bitch if I¡¯m going to take this one sitting down!¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be stupid, Aikaterine! You would get slaughtered by palace guards before you could blink if you rush in like an idiot!¡± ¡°If you won¡¯t avenge your friends, then I shall proceed alone!¡± Aikaterine harrumphed. Slaughtered before one could blink? ¡°Aikaterine, my comrade!¡± someone shouted out, ¡°You aren¡¯t alone! The entire Homeland Defense will back you! If we went in, I am completely confident that we would be the one doing the slaughtering!¡± A single woman beside me raised her sword above her head and began shouting, ¡°The Lord Governor enjoys killing? Today, we will dye his palace grounds red with the blood of his supporters!¡± One after one, people joined the rallying cry. The news spread quickly, and hordes of people flooded into the rally. Raw, naked emotions were clearly visible. Moments later, a lone figure walked up onto the announcement platform From her aura alone, one could tell that she was elegant and composed. She was none other than the pinnacle of the entire generation, Ilsa Ina. A rebellious kid who single handedly wiped out a team of experienced expeditionary forces, stood absolutely no chance against her, even without armor or the Mana Arts. A hush drew over the gathered as a paragon of death ascended the steps. In front of me, there was the embodiment of perfection. With my training speed, I could only be considered ¡®above-average,¡¯ yet in front of the apex of the generation, I felt so inspired that it was as if I, we, could achieve anything. Her lips barely moved, but a single word shook the heavens and the earth. ¡°Respect. It is something we all deserve.¡± I could feel the tremors in my body as it shook in unison with the air. Her facial expression grew dark. Once again, her lips moved ever so slightly. ¡°Yet, there are people who do not respect us. They think that they can just trample over us and kill thirty-nine people with no consequences.¡± She paused briefly. ¡°As of half an hour ago, we have received multiple sources of intelligence that have incriminated the Lord Governor Darwin beyond even a shadow of a doubt.¡± Her fist flew out, and the podium in front of her splintered apart into hundreds of shards from her vicious strike. ¡°Today, we will show the world exactly how we deal with such vermin-- vermin that dare trample on the pride of the Homeland Defense and audaciously kill our comrades in our own base.¡± A cruel smile appeared on her face. ¡°By the power vested in me by the Holy Matriarch, I, Ilsa Ina order Lord Darwin to be put to death!¡± ¡°Kill them all!¡± someone screamed. ¡°Kill them all!¡± someone else agreed. Gaining momentum, the phrase quickly became a chant. As more and more people joined in, the chant became deafening. Part 2 ¨C In the time it took to finish a cup of tea, the Sinechian Homeland Defense had scrambled and was already marching through the city gates towards the palace of the Lord Governor. The streets were completely silent as we passed through. The normally cheery morning attitude was replaced by a grim, foreboding mood. Several minutes later, the 127th infantry battalion had completely surrounded the Lord Governor¡¯s palace. ¡°Lord Darwin, you have been surrounded! For the crime of treason against the Holy Matriarch, you are to be executed!¡± ¡°And what might I have done to deserve such slander against my honourable name?¡± came the immediate response. ¡°Don¡¯t fake ignorance! You know exactly what you¡¯ve done!¡± Ilsa roared, causing the very air to tremble with rage. ¡°Oh woe is me! For the innocent myself to be slain in the streets, without even the barest of explanations for such cruel slander against me! A grave injustice has been committed against I! Heavenly Matriarch, please forgive thine servant for committing the grievous crime of slandering thine good name and reputation by association with swine such as I! Thine servant shalt slap himself in the face a hundr--, One thousand! times to atone for such an egregious error!¡± The sound of face slapping rang out from the Lord Governor¡¯s palace. Ilsa, like many of the soldiers, didn¡¯t really have any patience to start with. ¡°Enough with the theatrics! Just seize the traitor and execute him!¡± Ilsa¡¯s order rang out into the minds of every soldier from her command orb. In a single uniform movement, the soldiers surged forward. ¡°Has thine witnessed the actions of these despicable vermin? To execute one such as myself without as much as an accusation, a piece of evidence, or a trial! Holy Ancestors would turn over in their graves at such an injustice! Mine puny mind dares not believe his grandiose empire to ever degrade to such a lowly state! Thine can only possibly imposters! If thine be not imposters, thine are traitorous swine! Come, Imperial Guardians, execute these imposters and traitorous swine before thine, which mar the earth gifted to us from the heavens! Just as the Lord Governor¡¯s sonorous voice finished resonating through the air, twelve silhouettes took flight from the palace landing pads. Fireballs and energy bolts lashed downwards at the lines of soldiers, only to be stopped by massive magic barriers. Once again, Ilsa¡¯s voice rang through the command orb, ¡°If they think they can defeat us with a few aerial mages, they are greatly mistaken! Impose a no-fly zone immediately!¡±The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Support mages stationed at various intervals on the city walls began setting up the no-fly zone, causing there to be a very noticeable change in the air within seconds. Feeling this difference, the aerial mages rapidly descended towards the landing pads. Unfortunately, the no-fly zone was imposed before a few could completely descend. With no way to dodge now, they fell victim to the hundreds of arrows that suddenly and unexpectedly lanced out from every surrounding rooftop, window, and shrub. Three aerial mages resembling porcupines splattered against the landing pads. With heavy fire support from the ranged divisions, the close combat forces rushed through the outer gates with Ilsa in the lead. Inside however, they had no cover from the protective barriers. Dozens fell to fireballs and force bolts. As they advanced, a great number of statues suddenly came to life. ¡°Bloodstorme Golems! Form ranks!¡± Taking advantage of the resulting chaos, tens more Imperial Guards stormed out of various hiding places to join in the surprise attack. The Imperial Guards held the edge in strength and experience, but it wasn¡¯t enough against the sheer numbers of the 127th infantry. After a bloody battle, the Imperial Guards and golems were finally subjugated. However, as the healers rushed to the front¡­ ¡°They aren¡¯t responding to the Life Arts! The Imperial Guards are using cursed weapons!¡± An advance was immediately ordered before the shock could set in. ¡°Avenge your comrades! Behead the Lord Governor!¡± Before they even had to grieve, they were face to face with the next group of Imperial Guards at the stairs. As they relentlessly pushed up through the various choke points, a cursed spear punched through Ilsa¡¯s armor half an inch from her heart. As the healers rushed to stabilize her, the rest of the close combat forces pushed on. The close combat forces continued to rush through every choke point and ambush, spearheaded by heavy armor. The Imperial Guards could not hope to do very much against the heavy armor, so they ignored them and went for the backlines. However, the Homeland Defense surged forwards without any regard to human life. As the Homeland Defense forces reached the third floor, some hundred and fifty odd people had been left dead or dying across the palace grounds in the fighting¡¯s wake. On the final floor of the palace, the Imperial Forces and Homeland Defense faced off. On one side, the Lord Governor and every servant, attendant, guard, and family member of Lord Darwin stood with a grim expression. On the other, the mentally and physically spent Homeland defense, close combat forces. ¡°Today is truly the darkest of days. Traitors and imposters have managed to root and grow in city under the control of none other than myself. I doth hope that this miserable soul can obtain thine forgiveness in the afterlife, in the embrace of our Heavenly Mother.¡± ¡°Nonsense!¡± the Guard Captain bellowed. ¡°Our omniscient Heavenly Mother has seen your valiant efforts and will greatly reward you!¡± The Guard Captain looked up into the heavens, and continued, ¡°Oh dear Heavenly Mother, look upon your children and witness our undying loyalty! Of your servants, we shall endlessly serve you! Until the traitors kill off every man, woman and child here, we shall unceasingly fight the enemies of the Heavenly Mother! The enemy wishes to extinguish us?! So be it.¡± The Imperial Forces raised their weapons, both professional and makeshift, in a single unifying battle cry and charged the Homeland Defense. Part 3 ¨C The time is now. With a whisper into my command orb, a dozen of silhouettes gathered. Without another word, the shadows moved into camp. The few still in camp were killed soundlessly. We very quickly approached the last people left. I nodded and pointed at the last tent¡ªthe command tent. Brick sized objects were placed around the tent before everyone backed away. I gave the order and the bricks detonated. Each of the shadows began launching a volley of force bolts and fireballs into the tent. The entire flaming tent collapsed and turned to ash under the intense heat. I laughed inwardly. There isn¡¯t very much that could have survived that. I summoned a gust of wind and blew and cleared the smoke away. Huh? A lone figure stood amidst the badly burned carcasses. The single figure carefully looked at each of the thirteen of us. ¡°Why, Karl?¡± she asked in a hoarse voice. ¡°You recognized me? That¡¯s very impressive.¡± ¡°Why?¡± she asked again. ¡°When a weapon breaks, it should be replaced. When one becomes injured, they should be healed. This is the guideline of the universe.¡± Her eyes narrowed. ¡°What are you trying to say?¡± she hissed. ¡°Speak no riddles, devil!¡± I smiled good-naturedly. ¡°What I¡¯m trying to say is simple. God is dea¡ª¡° ¡°HERESY!¡± she screamed. ¡°You may not be willing to accept it, but it is the sad truth. Our Heavenly Mother is no longer with us. If we don¡¯t act quickly, our power will only continue to decline and before we know it, our neighbors will have already taken our land and destroyed all we know.¡± ¡°The Heavenly Mother? Dead?! I dare you to show even a single shred, an iota of proof!¡± ¡°Look no further than the God Wars of half a century past. Each decade since then has resulted in the brutal demon wars, and the resulting deaths of no less than one in every seven! The conscription age for this damned country does not exist either! Is the motto not, ¡®he who can walk, can fight?¡¯ Which god can look upon such a country without hiding their face in shame?¡± Her face was burning with absolutely rage. ¡°Y-You traitor¡­Do you hold nothing sacred! I don¡¯t believe it! How much did they bribe you for your loyalty?¡± ¡°I care not for the money, for I was only paid three silver ingots. Rather, what I care for is the promise of a secure nation. Our neighboring nations are looking at us like wolves. The time to act is now, not tomorrow, or next year, or the next century. If we wait for a dead god to solve our problems, we¡¯ll have truly reached the pinnacle of stupidity.¡± ¡°Who are you to talk about the pinnacle of stupidity? You have betrayed the Heavenly Mother, and for thirty mere silver pieces at that! And now you dare proclaim that your lord and savior is dead?! Are you but an ingrate that knows nothing other than how to jump sides at the crucial moments?¡± I frowned. There are those who will simply not understand. ¡°The rule of the Matriarchy is finished, Lieutenant Kazia. When the first prince in a thousand years ascends the throne, it¡¯ll signal the beginning of a new era¡ªthe era of unending prosperity!¡± ¡°Bullshit! Your intention to overthrow the Matriarch isn¡¯t fueled by justice or honor! Your despicable actions are from the sole standpoint of greed! Without any regard for the Holy Mother, you have committed this treasonous act for a mere thirty silver coins!¡± ¡°Greed? How can my intention be greed if I am willing to die for my ideal?¡± ¡°Aye, if to die you are willing, then to die is your fate!¡± Lieutenant Kazia growled and a second later, appeared a foot in front of me. Her sword flashed, but was stopped a millimeter from my head. Directly behind her, a shadow was holding a scepter. ¡°The Scepter of the Absolute Ruler,¡± she cursed. Around her, tens of chains had caught her and were locking in place, causing her to be unable to move a single muscle. ¡°Well, as much as I¡¯d like to stay and chitchat, I¡¯ve got work to do,¡± I sighed. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Not hesitating in the least, I leapt into the air. Spikes stuck out of the ground in an ever-growing circle around her. Using the Mana Arts of Air, I propelled myself backwards to safety before rapidly retreating. A shadow pulled out a blowgun and shot a dart into her neck. Immediately, the rate at which the circle of spikes expanded outwards slowed. Kazia let out a howling shriek as a green sabre suddenly appeared in her hand. The blade flew out of her hand, and blurred slightly. The chains holding her instantly shattered. ¡°Shit, she has a high grade Divine Arm!¡± I yelled out in warning. With her free hand, she ripped the dart out of her neck before the green sabre returned to her. A green aura surrounded her, and everything about her was visibly transforming. Her muscles started swelling and her irises turned green. ¡°She¡¯s using the Limit Breaker class Arts! Retreat and play time!¡± I immediately ordered. With a single spell, the ground underneath her instantly turned to a really sticky mud. Tens of chains shot toward her from all angles without pause. A golden glow came from the Scepter of the Absolute Ruler. The golden aura stretched from the scepter and surrounded Lieutenant Kazia. Unfortunately, the golden glow could not penetrate the green aura. Like a blur, she moved through the mud as if it weren¡¯t there. As her sword descended towards me again, a shadow moved and intercepted it. The other shadows inflicted wounds all over her body. The green sabre blurred again, and the shadow protecting me split into four chunks. Seeing that the shadow had I died, I sent a Force Bolt flying through its dead body. Lieutenant Kazia¡¯s eyes widened in shock as the Force bolt unexpectedly shot out of the body of the shadow before drilling an inch deep hole in her leg. I¡¯d like to see her move so easily with a hand-sized hole in her leg. Her sabre blurred twice more and two shadows beside her split apart. What the hell is her mana pool? To use the Instantaneous Bladework ability so many times consecutively¡­ Once again, her sabre blurred and another shadow fell to the ground. Suddenly, her body started to slacken. The combination of blood loss and mana overuse was starting to take its toll. As she drew a vial towards her mouth, my eyes widened. Without hesitating, I fired a Force Bolt and shattered the vial to pieces. Letting her recover mana would be absolutely disastrous. The green glow around her suddenly vanished. Without the defensive green aura, the golden glow shot into her from all angles. As soon as it penetrated fully into her head, she completely froze. A second later, she keeled over like a puppet with its strings cut. Her body was dragged onto the elevated platform in the middle of the base. Just to be extra sure she was dead, her spine was severed at the base of the neck. The dagger was left in, in case she tried healing herself. That is, if bloodless, unconscious, paralyzed people could even heal themselves. The shadows quickly cleaned up their corpses and helped the grunts to bring in boxes. The boxes were placed all around the camp, and under the elevated platform. I was given a chair, and a rack was set up behind me. From it dangled Lieutenant Kazia by the neck. Finally, a circle was drawn around the elevated platform. ¡°Send my sister the letter,¡± I said to one of the shadows. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about your sister,¡± one of the shadows said reassuringly. ¡°We diverted your funds to her and we will send her your letter.¡± I smiled. ¡°I wonder¡­ ¡° I closed my eyes and leaned back into my chair. The shadows and grunts saluted and started to leave. Part 4 ¨C Unbeknownst to the fighters, a chicken had watched the entire fight. Well to be more accurate, simply no one cared enough to notice a random chicken. A small group of ten or so people arrived at the gates of the camp. ¡°Who goes there?¡± a shadow asked. ¡°Just a few of Karl¡¯s friends,¡± one of the new arrivals replied. ¡°We were merely going to ask if we could buy one of your empty caravan and a few horses.¡± The shadows looked at each other and shrugged. A minute later, the transaction was complete. All but a single cart with two horses left from the base. The small group of ten or so made a beeline for the supply tents. After half a minute of chugging mana solutions and replicating, the number in the group had leapt to fifty. ¡°That should be enough puppets. Now let¡¯s take all this stuff.¡± The group of people began carrying stuff back to the caravan. A lone figure entered the center of the base and approached the guy in the chair. ¡°Whoa, impressive battle!¡± he exclaimed. The guy in the chair opened his eyes in surprise. ¡°Steele, you need to get out of here!¡± ¡°What about you, Karl?¡± ¡°I¡­ have to settle some things. I¡¯ll probably see you again in the near future.¡± Guessing his intention, the lone figure laughed ceaselessly. After what seemed to be an eternity later, the lone figure finally managed to suppress his mirth. ¡°Splendid! Wonderful! Bravo! Hahaha¡­ are you not afraid?¡± ¡°Not in the least. Sometimes, a man has to do what a man has to do.¡± The lone figure nodded in assent and smiled. ¡°Well, just do what you feel is best, Karl.¡± With that said, the lone figure turned around. ¡°Cya later, Karl.¡± The guy on the chair said nothing. Part 4 ¨C [Act III] What does misery look like? I casually observed the scene of carnage before me. The sound of a child crying. Blood as far as the eye can see. Scattered body parts of friend and foe alike. The headless body of the Lord Governor, relaxed and casually leaning against a wall. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that he didn¡¯t have a head, he may have been chatting with a good friend. Chatting about making money maybe. For every man or woman standing, there are two on the ground. Was this worth it? Am I stupid? Of course it was worth it. If we hadn¡¯t of executed the Lord Governor, maybe fifty more of us would have died. Hundreds more, dead at the hands of a tyrant for mere chump change. Or maybe fifty wouldn¡¯t have died. Maybe this was the only time he ever killed anyone. Was this the right decision? Only heaven knows that answer. Suddenly, someone screamed. In the middle of the room¡­ was a child holding an axe. There was a soldier on the ground, screaming¡ªrightfully so, as half his leg had been chopped off. The child lifted the bloody axe above his head and finished off the poor soldier. The child cackled. ¡°That¡¯s what you get for killing da-¡° His victory cry was cut short by a soldier behind him. Slowly, the two halves of child split apart. A vertically bisected child¡­ great. He must have been the Lord Governor¡¯s kid. The soldier trembled, dropped her sword, turned around, and threw up. I felt strangely indifferent. It¡¯s as if I really don¡¯t care anymore. After a whole day of this kind of shit-fest, I¡¯m a kind of desensitized to it. An order to evacuate the building was given, and so everyone got out of the building. The dead bodies were piled into the building and the disaster proofing spells were disabled. I felt a massive surge of Essence of Fire in the air as the entire palace was set ablaze. Why didn¡¯t we just set the entire palace on fire in the first place? We¡¯re kind of stupid, I guess. Wait, their mages could have just put the disaster proofing spell back up if we just set it on fire. Now I feel dumb. What am I even thinking about now? I just need a long nap. With our objective complete, we began a slow march back to base. This time around, the people in the streets didn¡¯t really pay attention to us. They sort of just tried to ignore us. They ignored us, and we ignored them. As we passed through the unguarded gates, I unexpectedly thought back to the scene of the axe-wielding child. That girl¡­ killed a child. That¡¯s¡­ messed up. That child¡­ killed a guy. That¡¯s¡­ also messed up. Why did I not care at all when it happened? The feeling of indifference I got when a child casually killed someone? What the hell is wrong with me? Much less protect someone, I didn¡¯t even care when I little kid killed someone! Am I something less than human, to not even care in the slightest at a child murdering someone? No, this is all a dream. Why should I care about someone who doesn¡¯t exist? I¡¯ll wake up and everything will be alright. Yeah, this is just a nightmare. As I walked through the base, I suddenly felt a clenching of my heart. In the middle of camp on the elevated platform, there was a guy sitting in a chair. And behind him, hung the body of Lieutenant Kazia. A scream resounded through the base, and Ilsa charged at the guy in the chair. Ilsa was stopped with a sickening crunch as if she ran into a brick wall. ¡°Give it up. You¡¯ll never break through the Line in the Sand,¡± the guy in the chair said apathetically. Ilsa was murderous now. The wound on her chest had reopened now. Several soldiers tried to restrain her, but against her monstrous strength, it was as if they weren¡¯t even there. ¡°You¡¯ve got some balls, coming here! But I¡¯ll tell you now, I¡¯ll have your organization torn out by the roots! You degenerates have no hope of winning!¡± Ilsa screamed hysterically. The guy in the chair looked at her with a bored expression. ¡°Hope? I haven¡¯t got any of that. I haven¡¯t had any for as long as I remember. Even as a child, I had no hope for anything. Suddenly, I remembered back to the scene of the child. I threw up, creating a mess in front of me. ¡°God dammit, can you please do that outside?¡± someone yelled angrily. I muttered an apology and ran towards the exit. ¡°No hope? Don¡¯t be ridiculous, simply by being here, I know you hope to accomplish something!¡± Ilsa raised her voice behind me. ¡°You¡¯re mistaken,¡± the guy on the chair declared, ¡°One does not need hope, to have a purpose.¡± I looked back. A glittering drop formed in the corner of his eye. It managed to catch the afternoon sunlight and sparkle slightly. I slowed to a stop. He slowly got out of his chair. The image of half a child flashed through my mind and I immediately felt the urge to throw up again. I ran as fast as I could and suppressed my lump of bile rising in my throat. The guy on the stage slowly disappeared from view as I exited camp. I found a tree and fell to my knees and let out the remaining portion of my lunch. Without warning, a colossal force sent me sailing soundlessly through the air. An intense heat singed me from behind as I fell on the ground. A white boulder sailed over my head and landed in the field in front of me. I muttered something, but I couldn¡¯t hear anything. I turned around and stared in horror. The characteristic white walls of the base had been reduced to rubble, and the base itself was a sea of fire. Everything was extremely quiet and echo-ey, as if I was somewhere deep underwater. My entire body ached. My heart ached. My mind ached. ¡°This is a dream,¡± I muttered, as horrifying images flashed through my mind without pause. ¡°This is a dream¡­¡± I said, louder. The lifeless, unfocused eyes of the child stared into my soul. Suddenly, I found myself screaming. It didn¡¯t really make a difference though, since it all sounded the same. As if my own two hands were possessed, I suddenly grabbed my sword. I¡¯ve had enough of this dream, this nightmare. I placed it on my left breast, and fell forwards. A sharp pain made my vision turn white at the edges. Propelled by my own body weight, the blade had completely pierced me. A warm fluid forced its way out of me. It slid over the hilt of my sword and flowed over my hands. The fluid was sickeningly warm, but cooled off quickly. My arms suddenly felt numb, followed by my legs. I slowly felt my consciousness fading. This really isn¡¯t a dream, is it? I smiled bitterly. Act III, End. Volume I, End. Volume 1 Afterword

Afterword

Haha! Before I get all sentimental and shit, I¡¯d like to sincerely thank everyone that supported me in any way. Anyone who read this, I thank you greatly! Anyone who found something cringey that needed changing, I also thank you greatly! IRATERAPSCALLION, your review made me realize what people liked about this new endeavor of mine, and for that, I am grateful. Although the end took a bit of a dark turn, I¡¯ll be back to classic Steele ¡®n friends in the next arc! Now, for the important but serious-ish part. I sort of left this story in the dust for a while due to life, and for that, I apologize. I think I¡¯ll spend a bit longer than usual on planning (instead of just a single day like last time :/). That way, the plot won¡¯t be as confusing and I¡¯ll be able to keep theplot going without any real ¡®filler.¡¯ Anyways, I hope that you¡¯ve had as much fun reading this as I¡¯ve had writing!Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. As always, please leave any comments, questions or suggestions in the comments! Oh wait, can¡¯t forget this! Top kek!
  • This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author¡¯s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Thanks! -ToBeAndNotToBe Volume 2 Prologue

Prologue

Prolly important disclaimer: This book is a work of fiction and has the concepts in this book have no political or ideological end. The use of any of the material herein by anyone towards any end in any way, shape, form or manner is the sole and independent responsibility of those that decide to do so. Innocent ToBeAndNotToBe cannot be held responsible or liable for any losses incurred, directly or indirectly. Thus, by continuing to use the information provided herein, the reader/user fully and unconditionally agrees to hold the author, his family members, his interests, etc. harmless and to release him/them from any and all liability of any kind (monetary or otherwise), injury (monetary or otherwise), or otherwise (monetary or otherwise). The author takes no position (does not support, endorse, reject, etc.) with regards to any political, religious, ideological, or otherwise, based upon the information contained herein. Part 1 ¨C It was a good day. Birds are chirping, the sunshine is shining, I¡¯ve got a full wagon of loot¡­ Life is good, man. Things are just going my way today. Trying to conscript me? Haha! Nice try, but I¡¯m outta here. Like a lightning bolt from a cloudless sky, a tremendous explosion tore through the air, sending all my clones stumbling forward as small chunks of debris shot past us. Chickens tumbled through the air, vials shook. I turned around and there¡¯s a fucking massive black cloud hovering over the military base. Lines of smoke were drawn as large chunks of things shot across the sky. The walls had gone on vacation and everything was on fire. Whaaat. The. FUCK. I suddenly remembered my last conversation with Karl. ¡¸This is your fault. You did this.¡¹ WHAT? I didn¡¯t know he was going to blow himself up! ¡¸¡±Just do what you feel is right,¡± my ass. I¡¯m blaming you.¡¹ I¡¯m clear of blame here! I didn¡¯t know he was going to kill himself! ¡¸What did you think he was going to do? Throw a party after killing a Lieutenant Colonel?¡¹The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. People don¡¯t usually blow themselves up! ¡¸You could have guessed his intention from his facial expressions!¡¹ I¡¯ve never seen someone blow themselves up before! Everyone¡¯s a general after the battle! ¡¸Well, no use crying over spilt milk. Wait, there¡¯s a survivor!¡¹ What? Oh god! She tripped and fell on her sword! Oh, fuck! With a flick of the reins, we made haste back towards the smoking crater that was the base. As approached the limp body on the ground, I noticed that a small fountain of blood was created every few seconds around her wound. That¡¯s her heart, isn¡¯t it. Oh shit, she¡¯s done. ¡¸Oh, wai wai wait, cancer in a bottle! Give her the cancer!¡¹ Oh cancer, with one noodly appendage thine giveth, with the other thine taketh away We quickly looked through the cart and found a case of green vials. ¡¸Essence of Life, one Imperial Unit. (150 silver). It¡¯ll do. ¡¹ As a group, we haphazardly flipped her over and pulled the sword out. ¡¸Quickly! Pour it on the wound!¡¹ The very second the green fluid hit her, the liquid vanished. Blood vessels reconnected and flesh regrew. I can see why this is worth a hundred and fifty silver now. ¡¸No pulse! Beginning cardiac massage.¡¹ What the fucking hell is going on today? It was going so well too! I sent a few puppets to look for survivors, but the outcome was already pretty obvious considering everything was burning. ¡¸Analyzing¡­¡¹ ¡¸No shock advised.¡¹ No shock advised? We don¡¯t even have an AED! ¡¸That doesn¡¯t matter. Elevate her legs so more blood goes to her head!¡¹ Sounds logical. A large white rock was carried over and her legs were placed on it. ¡¸Administering rescue breathing.¡¹ God dammit, what would a professional doctor do? ¡¸They would use expensive equipment that we don¡¯t have!¡¹ Well, make shit up! Improvise! ¡¸Uhh, pour water on her forehead. Lowering body temperature by two degrees doubles the time she has before brain damage sets in.¡¹ Solid plan, let¡¯s move her into shade first. We dragged her out of the direct sunlight and¡­ realized the water was lukewarm. Alright, how much money are we willing to spend on her? ¡¸Considering how rich we are¡­ a lot of money.¡¹ ¡¸She¡¯s breathing! There¡¯s a pulse!¡¹ Suddenly, a second explosion sent a shockwave through the air. Hundreds of shards of planks were sent flying through the air. The explosion originated from the center of the base so none of the shards of wood even came close to hitting us. Let¡¯s get out of here. This place gives me the heeble jeebles. ¡¸Good plan. ¡¹ Now that she had stabilized, we could afford to move her. We set the girl on the cart and headed for the city. People near disaster scenes are blamed. It¡¯s best to flee. In just under ten minutes, we had arrived at the gates. Strangely, they were unguarded. I wonder where that one guard went. There seemed to be a few people at the gates watching the smoke cloud, though. ¡°What happened?¡± a few asked. I quickly recalled the one map that I saw sometime in my life. ¡°We saw that too, but we came from the road to Henderson City.¡± The people nodded in understanding and we passed them without a problem. Just as we entered the city, the girl woke up. Her eyes opened, but she didn¡¯t move. She just laid there with her eyes open, staring off into space. ¡°Are you okay?¡± I asked. She sat up slowly and sighed after she saw the bloodstain on her clothes. ¡°You tripped and fell on your sword,¡± I said helpfully. She gave me a strange look. Her gaze drifted across my puppets and seemed to stop on one in particular. Their gazes met. Her expression rapidly shifted from apathy to shock, then from shock to relief. Suddenly, she was out of the cart. She wrapped her arms around him in a tight embrace and smiled like lost child who just found their mom. Then she cried as she mumbled something quietly. Skynet sees all, Skynet hears all. Using the best possible filters with all fifty inputs, the background noise was isolated and removed so that only the original message was left. ¡°So it really was a dream.¡± I wonder what that means.