《Sun, Sand & Wasteland: An Isekai Gone Wrong》 Chapter 1: A series of unfortunate events I¡¯d been sitting on my formerly abandoned couch, reading my favorite popcorn power fantasy novel on my six year old phone. Out of nowhere, a swirling blue portal appeared in my studio apartment. I must be dreaming. There was a countdown in a digital screen above it which had started at five minutes. This was it, my big chance. I knew it in my heart of hearts. Something was offering me passage to another world. Rushing like crazy, I emptied my rice-drawer into a plastic box and stuffed it into the hardiest shopping bag I owned. Wide sweeps of clothes from my closet joined the pile. Time was running out. Weapons. My wooden bokuto katana and biggest kitchen knives entered another plastic bag. Twenty seconds. In the last moments, I scrounged up a bunch of electronics and dove headfirst through the portal. It felt like going into warp-drive, a tunnel filled with starry lights whisked me away. Earth zoomed out. Planets flew past. Stars turned into bright streaks and soon solar systems became but specks of light. Even the galaxy turned into a pinprick eventually. The sensation of increasing velocity sped up more and more. Within moments, the whole universe disappeared behind me. But it didn¡¯t slow down. I couldn¡¯t make out anything anymore. It all turned into a blur, but my excitement remained. A new world, a new reality awaited me. I wondered what it would be. I hope I¡¯ll get a System. Or maybe cultivation. Why not both? Ooh, I hope there¡¯s going to be a harem. There has to be a harem, right? What weapon should I use? Well, swords obviously. And magic. Definitely loads of magic. Oh beloved beautiful Isekai goddess, give me a void and blood affinity. Something closed rapidly. I¡¯m here! It approached too quickly for me to make out anything. And then it happened, the first thing to go horribly wrong. Apparently interdimensional portals maintained momentum. I figured this out in a split second, right before crashing headfirst into a rock. Grogginess filled me and my eyes refused to open, crusted shut. For a moment I couldn¡¯t figure out what was going on until remembrance surfaced. Well, mostly it was sparked by the black outlined beige System-screen taking up my field of vision. Aw yeah, this is the good stuff. There was an entire list of notifications but five in particular caught my eye. Status unlocked. Status: BEING EATEN ALIVE!!! Toughness unlocked. Toughness +1 Toughness +1 That was when the pain hit. Sharp piercing spikes radiated from my left calf, and then something tore. My eyes shot open and some kind of unholy amalgam of a fish and a stick-figure was hunched over, gnawing on my goddamn leg. I kicked it with my other foot but it wouldn¡¯t let go. Notifications scrawled in the corner of my vision while I kept stomping it until it finally let go. My leg still carried my weight and both of us rose up to our full height. It was about half my size, blue skinned and scrawny with jagged yellow teeth. Anger consumed me and I wailed into it, an uppercut with all my might behind it connected squarely on its jaw and knocked it out. It also broke one of my fingers. Between labored, panic induced breaths, I realized something was terribly wrong. My skin was a tone of grey and strange, white bonelike protrusions emerged from it. In some places it was almost like natural armor, where it covered random parts of my body in plates that dove in and out of my skin. Checking up on my leg revealed it only bled slightly. The gnawing hadn¡¯t gone that deep and the fish stick monster had apparently been focused on pulling a bit of bone out of the way. Looking around proved fruitless. A thick mist surrounded me, showing nothing but the coarse yellow sand beneath my feet. All my stuff was nowhere to be seen either.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. And that¡¯s when my would-be eater woke up and screeched. Wild shrieks suddenly answered from every direction, except behind me. I turned around and saw the vague outline of a sun high on the horizon, and ran like hell. Or I would¡¯ve except I couldn¡¯t pick up a decent amount of speed no matter what. The shrieks intensified behind me. Nothing weighed me down either, only a half-torn rag covered my waist. System notifications scrolled by but I didn¡¯t have time for them. Strange roots threaded through the sand, turning the terrain treacherous. Only staring at my footing kept me upright. I ran and ran on bare feet, gaining speed ever so slowly. My panicked sprint carried me out of the fog, right into the scorching sun. It didn¡¯t matter. I kept going, driven by fear and the will to live. Everything turned into a haze until I finally found a shadowed cubby in a nearby huge sandblasted rock. Somehow the bleeding on my calf had completely stopped along the way. I could¡¯ve sworn the wound had gotten smaller as well. My attention turned to my System notifications and what they said. Thinking about it brought up the screen. Interface unlocked. ¡­ There were a lot of notifications. The gist of it seemed to be that experiencing something for the first time unlocked it, more or less. My current status showed as idle. Underneath it was a simplified depiction of my body, with numbers on each part. It was weird. My blood showed as 120/125, until it ticked up to 121/125. All my limbs, chest, stomach and head had their own numbers attached, maxing out at 125. Only my left leg and right arm were damaged. Leg sat at 112/125, while my arm was at 118/125. There were also attributes and skills. My only skills were athletics and martial arts, clocking in at 6 and 3 respectively. Attributes showed a toughness of 4, along with strength and dexterity, both at 2. There were a lot of others in both categories but they had black bars covering them, like redactions in a document. Sitting down and shifting a bit to get comfortable made me notice a lump in my rags. Hidden within a fold and miraculously still with me despite the frantic escape, I found a sandwich. It was coarse, hard to the touch and had some kind of green paste as filling. But the desperate fleeing had made me hungry and I took a bite. Disgusting. I nearly spit it out. The damn thing tasted like dust and wood shavings, so dry it nearly scratched my throat. Swallowing it was like forcing down cardboard. I couldn¡¯t bring myself to take another bite yet. I wanted to think real hard about what was needed to unlock more stats and get my power-ups going but this damn world just refused to cut me some slack. There was an ever-present heat haze. Combined with the endless dunes littered with random rusty scrap and huge rocks that seemed to be scattered about everywhere, well suffice to say I couldn¡¯t see very far. Someone approached from the distance however and I strained my eyes, trying to make it out. Another notification popped up but I ignored it. It looked vaguely humanoid and like it was pointing at me. It also shouted something I couldn¡¯t understand. The meaning became clear quickly enough when it emerged out of the shifting blur, with friends no less. They were human at least, carrying sticks and dressed in rags similar to mine. It wasn¡¯t all we shared either. Aside from the obvious changes, my body also looked heavily malnourished, like I¡¯d been wasting away for some time. In much the same way, the group of raggedy folk approaching me at a run probably missed their last twenty or so meals. Even though we had something in common, they didn¡¯t seem all that friendly. I got up and tried to speak, sandwich in hand, but they neglected to respond. Instead they yelled something in a strange language and attacked. The front one tried to smash me with its stick but I weaved away just in time and countered with a punch to the face, sending a spike of pain through my right arm. Clutching it proved a mistake, as the others surrounded me and kept beating me with their sticks. Blows rained down despite my attempts at resistance. Before too long my consciousness faded away amidst screams for help and cries of pain. I came to an indeterminate amount of time later. Once again, System notifications scrolled by but that was the last thing on my mind. Hunger cramped my stomach and my throat was so dry even breathing hurt. The sandwich was gone. Salvation loomed not too far off however. An incredibly buff man dressed in white robes had walked right past. The priest-like bodybuilder probably thought I was just a corpse. He carried a book with a strange symbol on it, like a rendition of a sun but with tentacles instead of artistic depictions of spreading light. On his back rested a huge ornate sword shaped with a cross shape. The blade was long like a two-hander and had no tip, ending in a flat section. There were others, but this guy looked like he was in charge. My cry for help turned into a cough, but it caught his attention still. He waved to one of his buddies, or subordinates, and then pointed at me. Finally, a stroke of good luck. I reached out while another ripped guy sauntered over and started rummaging in his backpack. My heart dropped when I saw what he pulled out. He closed iron shackles connected with a chain around my ankles and locked them with a rusty makeshift key. No, no, no. My trashing and shaking pissed him off, which caused him to pull out a fancy metal stick and smack me in the face with it. For the third time today, I got knocked out. Chapter 2: Robeep Getting jostled woke me up. Moving turned out to be a mistake, as my captor threw me off his shoulder unto the sands and none too gently either. My head cracked against a piece of rusty metal. Everything hurt but I got up despite the pain. My captors started shouting strange incoherent words at me. The one who held my bindings punched me in the gut and went back to walking. Getting the hint, I did my best to keep up. It was hard. The shackles dragged at my feet, unbearably heavy for some reason. Hunger and thirst tortured me. Debuffs littered my System screen. Malnourished, -5 all attributes. Dehydrated, -5 all skills. Encumbered, -7 all attributes & skills. Blood was full, but my overall body health was down into the seventies, adding yet more negative modifiers all over the place. Except for my stomach, which showed 56/125. My status said ¡®enslaved¡¯. Everything else had been redacted, even the previously unlocked stuff. They kept me in a constant state of deprivation. My meals consisted of the occasional tossed leftover pieces of meat or moldy bread. A waterskin had been offered to me, filled from a fouled oasis we came across. The water there had been dirty with unknown particles inside, some of them moved on their own. A sheen of oil on top had displayed the full spectrum of colors. It was a miracle drinking it didn¡¯t kill me outright. We seemed to be wandering between small settlements across barren desert. My various body parts recovered to full health during the first few days. Wherever we arrived, the locals - all human - presented their own copy of the strange book, held high, and bowed down in obvious worship while the ripped priest spoke strange words. My despair peaked the first time it happened. I had made the mistake of looking up at the blazing sun. It wasn¡¯t the usually expected orb of fire. Instead it looked like a glowing ball of massed tentacles wrapping around each other. Some of them wavered languidly, clueing me in to what the symbol on the book was supposed to represent. These insane bastards worshipped some kind of elder god or cthulhoid entity. Their constant chanting of its name taught me my first off-world word. Cor¡¯Athoz. The days of suffering continued. We eventually made it to a more vibrant area with grass that left small cuts in my feet. A large winding river snaked throughout the fertile valley. Small farms littered the landscape. I saw a battle of seemingly well-fed warrior-priests with equipment in various states of disrepair fending off a group of strange, fat creatures. They looked like a mix between a velociraptor and a hippo. My debuffs kept switching back and forth between their current state and ones that were twice as bad. They were called starving and parched. At least the encumbrance malus lessened slowly, it was now at only -3. My athletics skill had reappeared again as well, clocking in at 1 right now. Eventually, we made it to a settlement. A giant adobe wall obscured most of it. My vision had improved but not by much. I never made it inside, having been passed off to another group of hard-faced men. They had normal statures and wore the kind of equipment I¡¯d expect from a medieval knight badly down on his luck, mixed with Japanese influences. It seemed interesting but getting caught looking at my new escort was a terrible idea. They instilled the lesson into me with a beating. It brought most of my body parts down to below the seventies again, but at least toughness had reappeared, now sitting at 2. Our journey took us through a winding mountain passage. The wind threatened to sand my skin off, at least it felt that way. I received another beating during our climb up a rocky slope, evidently for going too slowly. Looking around was still difficult because of the constant heat haze, but I saw specks circling in the sky near our destination. We crossed a wobbly wooden rope bridge across a chasm. Below was nothing but large river raging between two sheer cliffs. The head of a gigantic statue of someone who wore clothing similar to the ripped priest stood out from the middle of an enormous winding pit. On the far end of the bridge, five big guys stood in a chevron formation with their arms crossed. They nodded to the group escorting me while I kept my head down. We passed some square adobe buildings on the way and I burned the layout into my memory. They brought me all the way down and locked me in a cage and fed me properly for once. Clean water and real bread almost made me feel alive again. Other slaves looked at me jealously, hinting that I shouldn¡¯t expect this kind of treatment for long. A slave next to me in our half circle of cages tried speaking a few times, but my replies simply caused him to frown and shut up. The other cage next to mine was empty. Thankfully, we had a tarp of dirty cloth covering us from the scorching sun. It was riddled with holes and no matter how I tried to hug the cage walls, some ray of light always landed on me, unbearably hot.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Things got a lot worse about a minute later, when a group of six men with whips and wearing shoddy clothes showed up. We were given a crude backpack made of a plank, some cloth and held together by sticks. A blunt pickaxe was shoved into my hands. One of the taskmasters prodded towards a section of the open pit. He apparently wanted me to mine rocks. It was exhausting but the fear of more beatings pushed me to continue until my breaking point. I only stopped for a few minutes and a whip lashed my back. Taking time off wasn¡¯t allowed. The taskmaster did allow us to rest eventually. I even received some moldy bread and thankfully clean water. My slave group had two people other than me. Both of them looked a lot like the fish stick monster but were about half again as tall and of a brown coloration. They didn¡¯t have the sharp jagged teeth either, but rather a mouth full of what looked like wooden molars. Their eyes were strangely human. And then our work continued. I barely made any progress but eventually filled up a backpack. They had me carry it to a landfill and dump it out, only to repeat the whole process again. At the end of the day, we got a complementary beating. Every morning, I woke up in the cage with half healed injuries. They barely fed us and then put us to work immediately after. During the third day, a new member joined our group. This one was particularly strange. It looked like the stick people but mechanical. It made no sense whatsoever, loose wires and jutting metal were sticking out all over it. Moving clockwork mixed with pistons and tubes. Somehow it all worked despite the obvious state of extreme negligence and disrepair. How the sand didn¡¯t clog up everything was well beyond me, but its arrival was the best thing that could¡¯ve happened to me. It had been put in the empty cell next to mine for the night. I figured it was their version of a Sunday or something because they didn¡¯t beat us unconscious and were praying to the alien sun for the third time as it settled. Out of sheer desperation I tried talking to the robot. ¡°Hey there, can you understand me?¡± It turned towards me, completely still, and ciphers flashed in the screens where its eyes should be. At first it stuttered and gave out soft mechanical screeches. Its voice modulated a few times until, finally, I understood it. ¡°Greetings fellow meatbag. I comprehend you,¡± it said in a decidedly toneless mechanical voice. ¡°Uhh¡­ Meatbag?¡± ¡°Yes. A bag of meat. Like you and me.¡± ¡°Buddy, I¡¯m not sure if you¡¯ve noticed but you¡¯re a robot.¡± ¡°My name is not Buddy. I am Robeep. I am a bag of meat. Like you and me. Like you and me. Like you and me.¡± It spazzed out for a bit, twitched a few times and then started over. ¡°I am Robeep.¡± Right, best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. ¡°Alright. Robeep, sure. Can you tell me where we are?¡± ¡°We are in the Great Womb. Here we are born again. It is a great opportunity granted to us by his grace, the Grand High Priest and Holy Representative of Cor¡¯Athoz. Cor¡¯Athoz. Cor¡¯Athoz. Cor¡¯Athoz.¡± A few sparks flew out of Robeep¡¯s head. ¡°Ooookay. What¡¯s the grand priest¡¯s name?¡± ¡°Bill, but you must refer to him as the Grand High Priest and Holy Representative of Cor¡¯Athoz. Otherwise, you will be beaten. He is the leader of the One True Faith. One True Faith. One True Faith.¡± Robeep twitched a couple of times, and then headbutted the cage three times in a row. ¡°Understood. Do you know why they keep us here and enslave us?¡± ¡°We are not enslaved. We have been given the great opportunity to cleanse our sins by working until we die so we can be reborn as pure humans instead of filthy xenos scum. Xenos scum. Xenos scum.¡± Robeep¡¯s arms attempted to spin wildly, constantly crashing against the bars. ¡°My status says I¡¯m enslaved.¡± ¡°Does not compute. Please clarify. What is a status?¡± Oh, well at least it¡¯s my System, I guess. ¡°Never mind. Forget I said that-¡± ¡°Deleting data. Forgetting complete.¡± I stayed quiet for a while, afraid Robeep might go into a frenzy again. A night guard was making his rounds. About five minutes after he left earshot, I continued. ¡°You sure you¡¯re alright, Robeep? It sounds like you¡¯re¡­ a bit under the weather.¡± Like you¡¯re a broken computer. Robeep¡¯s eyes blanked out for a few seconds. They looked suspiciously like a blue screen of death. It spoke afterwards, ¡°Diagnostics incomplete. Lacking administrative credentials. Provide username and password to complete diagnostics and initiate cognitive repair.¡± Hmm. What are the odds? ¡°Username: Admin. Password: Admin.¡± ¡°Credentials cleared. Diagnostics complete. Cognitive repair complete.¡± Suddenly Robeep¡¯s voice gained inflection, that of a highly excitable teenager. ¡°Greetings, fellow meatbag! Thank you for fixing my fleshy brain. Please accept my eternal service as gratitude. I look forward to the great adventures we will have together, here in the Great Womb, working until we die! What is your name?¡± A system notification popped up before I could answer. Robeep has joined your squad. Name your squad. It wasn¡¯t hard to decide on a name. After all, it was all around me. Squad name confirmed: Sun, Sand & Wasteland. Might as well rip it, new world and all that. ¡°Just call me Susawa.¡± ¡°It is great to meet you Susawa! We will become the mightiest warriors to have ever lived. After we die and are reborn as pure humans, of course. Ha. Ha. Ha.¡± At least I wasn¡¯t in this alone anymore. Now to figure out how the hell we¡¯re going to escape from this hellhole. Chapter 3: Fight club The next morning, they gave us a proper meal. Except for Robeep, who got some rudimentary repairs done on him and what looked like an oil refill. The engineer was a bald, shackled, dark red skinned lady. Apparently they kept her somewhat well-fed. She wore patched together remnants of a lab coat mixed with rags. They gave her some kind of strange foldable kit filled with assorted precision tools for the job. I tried to track where they led her but lost track of them in the haze. The attempt prompted another pop up and felt like it made me able to see a little further. Perception +1 My debuffs disappeared and the guards had clearly been drinking since they were incredibly sluggish and irritable, lashing out at anyone who so much as held their head high. Except Robeep, whom they ignored. This gave me enough time to check out my System progress. All my debuffs were gone, even the encumbrance one. I had four attributes now. My strength was 10 and my dexterity 2. All the beatings greatly improved my toughness apparently since it had shot up to 14. The new addition, perception, was at 5. I also had four skills. They were athletics, dodge, laboring and martial arts, with respective scores of 11, 1, 17 and 5. A squad screen had also showed up. For now it only displayed Robeep, enslaved just like me. He still couldn¡¯t compute what a status was though. I had no damage, although he was in a general state of disrepair, with scores in the high eighties. They were a far cry from his universal maximum of 150. His oil was at 91 out of 150. Unlike me, he didn¡¯t seem to regenerate on his own. His attributes and skills weren¡¯t as detailed as mine and made no sense whatsoever considering his mechanical nature, but I wasn¡¯t going to complain. The redaction seemed to be based on my own unlocks however. Everything showed as very low for him. Our labor day passed the same as it always did, but this time I woke up much earlier from the consequences of my daily beating. There was definitely some weird stuff going on. Everyone healed way too quickly and it was hard to get proper information out of Robeep, until I figured out the secret. He wasn¡¯t a mindless automaton. In fact, Robeep sported some rather lofty goals and playing into them was the key to get him to do whatever I wanted. ¡°Robeep, I need to test you to make sure you are worthy of conquering the wasteland in a storm of glorious bloodshed.¡± ¡°Understood Susawa, I shall pass your grand trials and ensure our war cries are the last things our victims hear before we rip out their spines!¡± ¡°Why does everyone heal so quickly?¡± ¡°That information is confidential and forbidden knowledge for meatbags like us. But to prove my wisdom, I can tell you it happened after the collapse of the First Empire.¡± ¡°When did the First Empire fall?¡± ¡°The First Empire fell approximately 84957 years ago. May the cowards of the wastes scream our names in hopes of vain mercy for equally as long.¡± The timespan nearly sent me into shock. This place was ancient. ¡°How old are you Robeep?¡± ¡°My vitality is fit to spread carnage. I am 2194 years old. ¡± Nothing could surprise me anymore at this point. I interrogated him for a good hour before our scheduled duties began. Apparently getting transported here changed my race to something called an Admorak. We were supposed to be a brutish warrior culture and feared in the southern deserts. Or we would have been, if my people hadn¡¯t been consumed by endless internal struggles. The prospect of working until we died appealed significantly less upon finding out how long my lifespan was, something I had considered impossible. Supposedly all fleshy races shared it, stick people aside. We lived up to somewhere in the early 700¡¯s. The stick folk bred and died relatively rapidly, only living for a century or so. The daily cycle and length of a year were similar to Earth, although no real calendar existed because there was no point in keeping track. Similarly, hunger and dehydration took decades to end a life, even if the weakness and wasting away happened much sooner. According to Robeep, decaying still-alive husks could be found everywhere beneath the sands, but no one bothered digging them up. Brutal injuries could still kill quickly though. That sounded like the better way to go, compared to suffering a fate worse than death. Various factions ruled the wastes, or their own little pockets of it. It was largely unexplored territory and most people rarely ventured outside their settlements. It was dangerous as all hell. All kinds of strange creatures and mechanical monstrosities wandered about. Ancient ruins promised death or worse. The insane banded together, unified under the banner of weird and unusual goals. My only information source was starting to get skittish for some reason.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°Robeep, what major peoples are there?¡± ¡°I do not see why it matters how our fellow meatbags organize. We will burn their legacies regardless.¡± ¡°We need to know our enemies to destroy them all the better. It¡¯s one of the great wisdoms of war.¡± ¡°You have a point, but we are talking too much and maiming too little.¡± ¡°Look, Robeep. I promise we will crush them all like the vermin they are, alright?¡± ¡°Very well, your resolve is satisfactory.¡± The cultures didn¡¯t seem any better. There was of course the squabbling Admorak Republic, which was actually a monarchy in perpetual rebellion. Our current owner was the Sacred Principality of Cor¡¯Athaz. They worshipped the eldritch sun for reasons no one remembered, hated nonhumans with a passion and loved making slaves build giant statues. The ornaments served no purpose. Once complete, they were inspected, declared inadequate, torn down and then the work started all over again. It was ridiculous. Finally, there was the Union of Empires. It was a mess. The empires were actually two power blocs in a forever-alliance of sorts. Each empire was a republic of cities close to each other, where every king functioned more like a senator from ancient Rome and ruled absolutely over a single city. They had an overarching government, but it never got anything done because the leaders changed their minds faster than communications went back and forth. Most messengers didn¡¯t survive their trips anyway, which further complicated matters. ¡°Susawa, I admire your persistence and hope it extends in equal measure to ripping the limbs off our foes one by one while our laughter drowns out their excruciating torment. But our fragile wet meatbag brains are incapable of processing so much information. Soon you will begin to lose data fragments necessary for peeling the skin off our captured challengers.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s steer into your favorite topic then. What kind of wars and battles can we expect outside?¡± ¡°Excellent. The tactical and strategic scenario is well worth evaluating to maximize the efficiency of our extinction delivery services.¡± It turned out the only reason the three major factions were common knowledge was because they also warred incessantly against each other. Although, calling it small scale raiding and skirmishing might have been a more appropriate description. Populations were both low and high at the same time. The wastes were full of people and they all hated each other. It didn¡¯t help that most of them were insane too. Any information about the robot folk was confidential. It didn¡¯t matter for now anyway, because I had an idea. The locks on our shackles and cages were ridiculously simple and prompted me to try something out. Someone had tried to escape last night and to my surprise they didn¡¯t kill the guy. They just beat the shit out of him and locked him up again, even though he resisted. ¡°Hey Robeep. If we¡¯re going to kill all these idiots anyway, then why should we listen to them?¡± ¡°Susawa, you are a genius. From now on, I will only listen to you as we slaughter the innocent with reckless abandon.¡± ¡°Great. So I was thinking¡­¡± I looked at his mechanical body and all the protruding pieces of metal. ¡°Can you maybe get me a few pieces of metal small enough to try and pick these locks?¡± ¡°Of course! We will need freedom to effectively murder every single living creature. Except ourselves of course. Ha. Ha. Ha. We will be the only two meatbags left!¡± Without giving it a second thought, he ripped a few needle sized pieces of metal off his own body. I saw his chest durability decrease by a point. He tossed them over to me. Our captors allowed me to keep my pathetic excuse for clothing at least and I was pretty sure they didn¡¯t know about the inside pocket. Robeep kept mostly silent aside from the occasional declaration of eternal unrelenting slaughter, while I tried to pick the locks on my shackles. The mechanism was glaringly obvious but it wouldn¡¯t work for some reason. It wasn¡¯t until the next sun-worship day that I finally had my suspicions confirmed. Coincidentally, my newly unlocked lockpicking skill had gone all the way up to 7 the very same night. Because the debuffs weren¡¯t lowering my skill, I managed to open both the shackles and the cage. Just to be safe, I tossed the impromptu lockpick to Robeep and told him to hide it from our enemies. And then I snuck out of the cage, incidentally unlocking a stealth skill in the progress. Robeep almost ruined it however. ¡°To battle! Go Susawa! Make a necklace out of their eyes and flaunt it in front of their kin!¡± ¡°Shut up Robeep, it¡¯ll be easier to kill them if they don¡¯t know I¡¯m coming.¡± He kept his encouragements to a whisper after that. ¡°Your wisdom floods the sands Susawa, much like how the blood of our enemies will turn once barren soil into fertile ground.¡± Stealth went up pretty fast after finding and approaching the shitfaced night guard. Even though he was blackout drunk and looking away from me, my approach was still noticed somehow. Fortunately, the bastard reacted too slowly and I bashed him in the face with my shackles. It didn¡¯t bring him down but the fight was on. He pulled out his metal stick before I could do anything and smacked me in the side out of sheer luck. A rib cracked but my elbow pinned the weapon. In almost the same motion, I landed a right hook on his face and felt the recoil rattle the bones in my hand. Stabs of pain impeded me and he easily ripped the baton out of my clutches but not before I slammed a knee into his belly. The guard answered in kind, kneeing me in the family jewels and doubling me over. An impact slammed against the back of my head, sending me to the ground and making my vision swim. Curling up barely helped as blow after blow rained down on my back. My mind faded, the suffering became distant and I lost consciousness. I didn¡¯t mind, pain had become a state of being by now. Flashing System notifications during the fight told me my plan was working. I woke up earlier every day and every morning some guard got smacked a couple of times. The balance of power slowly started shifting in my favor. Every iteration made me a little faster, a little stronger, a little tougher. Not having to do slave labor was an added bonus, since my daytime recovery messed with the schedule. This continued for a while. Chapter 4: The Great Escape Two weeks later, I had a look at my System screen during another beating-free evening.
Attributes:
Strength 17
Dexterity 9
Toughness 18
Perception 8
Skills:
Assassination 5 Martial arts 11
Athletics 12 Stealth 24
Block 1
Dodge 7
Heavy Weapons 4
Laboring 20
Lockpicking 10
My attributes weren¡¯t really going up anymore from fighting the guards, although stealth still ran away with it. My lockpicking had also become stagnant, along with my martial arts skill. Some new developments had occurred though. Consistently bashing the guards with my shackles had unlocked the heavy weapons skill, although it went up slowly. Managing to parry with the manacles gave me a single point in the block skill too. Last but not least, successfully sneaking up on a guard, once my stealth skill got high enough, graced me with assassination. I should¡¯ve killed the bastard. He looked pretty dead in a pool of his own blood with a cracked skull. So my objective shifted to sneaking around and figuring out everything there was to know about this place. At least until someone caught me and delivered the usual beating. But the dude showed up completely healed the next day. There was still too much I didn¡¯t know about this place. Robeep was the epitome of that fact. After ¡®assassinating¡¯ a guard for the second time, I¡¯d let him out of his cage and had him wear both our shackles while walking in circles. Somehow, that actually made him stronger. It was a shame he refused to fight me for practice. We repeated this every night. Sneaking around, running in circles, carrying weights and alternating in hopes of raising both our stats. He even learned how to pick locks. Having him fight for real seemed too dangerous since he lacked the ridiculous healing factor though. ¡°C¡¯mon Robeep. It¡¯s time.¡± ¡°Once again, we will descend upon our foes and rivers will flow red with blood.¡± ¡°Actually¡­ That¡¯s pretty much the plan, yeah. Sort of.¡± ¡°Excellent. I look forward to hearing the helpless cries of their meatbag children.¡± Tonight was going to be different. We were getting the hell out of here. After delivering another dose of brain damage to the night watchman, I stripped him of his clothes and baton. They were a poor fit but wearable and better than my rag. Somehow it had escaped my notice that I was like seven feet tall. Admittedly that included my horns, but still. They curved out to the front from the top of my forehead and then slicked backwards like a weird greaser haircut. Head-butts were my new go-to move, using them had weirdly become my favorite thing after passing ten martial arts.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°Here, you can have my old threads.¡± ¡°Thank you for this great gift, Susawa. I shall wear them like we will soon wear the entrails of our enemies while they stare in despair as the light slowly fades from their eyes.¡± ¡°You do you, just stay quiet.¡± The people here were idiots. There were two entrances to the strip mine. The nearby one they brought me through and another at the opposite end of the labor camp. That one housed the barracks, supplies and armory. The close one and our destination housed all of one special slave, a little storage shed and nothing else. There was only one guard on duty at nighttime and he diligently looked outwards. I¡¯d already knocked him out once to try it. The daytime guards were much scarier but this guy¡¯s job was to ring an alarm bell and then probably die. ¡°Okay Robeep, we¡¯re going to sneak up together and then bash his head in at the same time, alright?¡± ¡°Understood, Susawa. I desire to see his wet brain leak out unto the sands so I can dance in it and paint his last moments with my footsteps.¡± The plan went off without a hitch, even though I held back. It unlocked Robeep¡¯s assassination skill. Indulgence overtook him and he kept bashing until there was nothing but pulp left but whatever, it made him happy. He even squealed quietly for a good two minutes and muttered about having seen the light. We shifted clothes. Robeep got mine again along with his own metal stick. He named it Brainseeker. This guard had been a little bigger. His helmet didn¡¯t fit me but the leather shirt did, barely. We¡¯d also snatched a pair of wooden Japanese style sandals for each of us from their previous owners and proper pants with belt and all. The real prize was genuine armor, sort of. It was mostly rags wound around my arms honestly, but two metal plates with straps covered my upper chest. It left my stomach completely exposed but it wasn¡¯t like I had any better options. It wasn¡¯t quite time to leave yet though. The storage shed didn¡¯t contain much besides random useless junk and hilariously old and rusty industrial components the size of a chair, some pickaxes, shitty slave backpacks and the grand prizes. They were the repair kit the engineer lady used on Robeep and an amphora of oil. After Robeep filled his own oil to the limit, I gave him the kit and some encouragement. ¡°Take good care of this, alright? Don¡¯t lose it no matter what. With luck, you¡¯ll be able to get up and kill even more meatbags with its help.¡± ¡°Thank you Susawa, your dedication to ceaseless genocide is admirable! Together, we will end history itself.¡± Only one more thing remained. Robeep slowly taught me the language and I picked up on it surprisingly quickly. It¡¯s funny how things like that happen when you have no other choice. My vocabulary wasn¡¯t perfect but I suspected it was better than using my buddy as a middleman. After sneaking up to the only properly sheltered cage in the Great Womb, I whispered. ¡°Hey, hey. You want leave? I help.¡± The bald engineer lady with skin the color of mahogany started for a moment but quickly replied, ¡°Yes! Yes! Let me out of here, please.¡± She spoke slowly, clearly thinking me some kind of halfwit. I unlocked her cage and we rejoined Robeep in some deep shadows right outside the gate. Robeep followed my previous order to stay absolutely silent at least. The engineer lady didn¡¯t however, ¡°And what now? There is nowhere to go and they will soon hire the ryoshi to come after us. If we don¡¯t get far enough, they¡¯ll bring us back and remove our legs to make sure we can never escape again. We will work the wells forever.¡± They¡¯ll what? Fuck it, never mind, stick to the plan. ¡°Look, woman¡­ Wait, what your name?¡± ¡°I am called Ruza.¡± ¡°Okay, look Ruza. I need you repair Robeep legs. Fast. Do now.¡± She shook her head but continued anyway. My suspicions proved correct, her catlike yellow eyes saw just fine the gloom. Tense silent hours passed until Robeep¡¯s legs reached maximum health, or durability. What does it matter? We¡¯re good to go. ¡°Ruza, you trust me? Okay?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have a choice. Fine, yes, you could have left me behind, so I trust you.¡± Her eyes wandered to the gently swaying rope bridge ahead. ¡°I know what you are planning¡­ I¡¯m not sure I have the courage.¡± I cracked a joke, ¡°Hey, no worry. Lose legs anyway.¡± Her laughter echoed slightly in our dark little cubby. She spoke after the giggle sputtered out, ¡°Thank you, truly. This was the first time I¡¯ve laughed in a decade.¡± There was something genuine in her voice and it brought up a System notification. Ruza has joined your squad. Before I could examine anything, shouts went out. Bells rang and left us with no choice. ¡°We run, now!¡± And that¡¯s how we escaped the eternal slave mines, by sprinting towards the middle of a rope bridge while some asshat nearly hit me with a crossbow bolt in total darkness from fifty paces away. Unfortunately it severed a piece of rope along the way and pitched one entire half of the bridge to a side. We didn¡¯t even get close to the middle. Ruza screamed and dropped down together with Robeep while I reflexively grabbed hold of the netting. Robeep yelled as he fell, ¡°We shall build a bridge of skulls all the way to Cor¡¯Athoz!¡± Another bolt slammed into a wooden step, inches off my face. Gathering all my courage, I let go. There¡¯d been some remaining sway and instead of diving straight into the water, the momentum sent me off to the side. I slammed against the stone cliff and slid along it for a few seconds until a protrusion smacked me in the ribs and a bone shifted badly. A cry emptied my lungs, but the pain never got a chance because I belly flopped into the frothing river first. Disorientation wasn¡¯t a problem however, because within moments my head slammed against something and knocked me out. Upon waking, I wasn¡¯t even soaked or cold. It was a little warm in fact. The System screen shook away the grogginess because of what it said. Status: BEING EATEN ALIVE!!! Chapter 5: This is my life now I became numb to the pain. My rising toughness stat might have had something to do with it. Whatever happened in the meantime remained unknown, but it didn¡¯t take a genius to figure out my current situation. Two scrawny, feral bastards crouched on opposite ends of a small campfire, salivating. Occasionally they¡¯d sneer, grunt or hiss at each other while motioning at my leg. Their clothing, or rather armor, consisted of bones tied together with sinew. I was tied to a pole with one leg splayed forward over the campfire, resting on a forked stick. They were slow roasting me. It didn¡¯t make sense at first. The intent became evident after one of the cannibals licked it, which flashed my status to being eaten alive, and gestured by repeatedly tilting his palm back and forth. Not enough salt, yet. My squad was nowhere to be seen, although Ruza¡¯s status showed as ¡®sneaking¡¯. Robeep had apparently decided upon abandoning us since his showed as ¡®walking¡¯. The cannibal who shared a race with Ruza - the other was human - licked me again and the dreaded moment arrived. He flashed a thumbs up. Right before he took a bite, Ruza¡¯s voice erupted in a war cry and she charged out of the nearby shrubbery. She ran at them while holding a thick dried branch high. My captors picked up their clubs and went out to the sides. Ruza¡¯s advance ended in confusion while they circled her, and she lost the initiative. They attacked at the same time and she blocked an overhead smash, but the other smashed its bone club into her knee and brought her down with an anguished cry. Soon enough, her unconscious form joined me, tied to a pole at my side. Morbid fascination overtook me while I watched teeth sink into my leg in slow motion, right below the knee. The pain overwhelmed me. Tears flowed freely. I screamed until my throat was raw. Desperately fleeing reality, my mind zoomed in on the System notifications as everything else was drowned out. Toughness +1 Toughness +1 Toughness +1 ¡­ It kept going at a rapid pace. My blood bar drained steadily, but the condition of my leg decreased fastest of all. And then it hit zero. A sharp crack and a spike of horrifying wrenching pain shot up my leg, enough to bring me out of my dissociation. It was just in time to see the second blow arrive. They used my metal baton to break the bone and crudely wrenched my leg loose. The status of it crossed out, numbers gone. Violent dry heaves overtook all my senses for a while. Horror became my world. It was soon replaced by hatred. Hatred for this place and its insane inhabitants. Robeep had been right. Bloodshed was the only way. My conclusion solidified as they passed my severed leg between each other like a drumstick, squabbling over it like animals, uncaring about how many times the bloody mud or stray ash soiled it. They finished it and let out satisfactory burps. It only delayed them by a few minutes until they started pointing again, apparently arguing whether they wanted another leg or one of my arms next. I had been wrong about one thing. Not everything here was bad. Robeep was a true friend and companion, together with Ruza. His actions proved so as he emerged slowly from the nearby river. Fury laced his excitable voice while he bellowed, ¡°How dare you meatbags eat my fellow meatbag?! BRAINSEEKER HAS FOUND ITS DESTINATION!¡± They tried the same tactic but Robeep was having none of it. He positioned aside, lining one up behind the other. His weaponed arm spun wildly, rotating blows which quickly tore the blocking club out of the humans hands. The other tried to attack but Robeep¡¯s arm jerked to a stop and his wrist spun. The blow came so unexpectedly it passed the inside guard and stunned the advancing one with an audible crack to the side of its head. Its weapon had dropped and the human cannibal dove for it. Meanwhile Robeep pulled back and stabbed his current target in rapid hydraulic motions. In a few tries, he hit it in the eye and the baton sunk in, deep.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Robeep¡¯s voice turned into a squeal, ¡°Yes! Yes! Brainseeker feeds on your mind. MORE! MOOORE!¡± At the same time, the other lunged for Robeep with its newly picked up bone club. Robeep¡¯s torso twisted to the side, rotating as if on a swivel. The motion carried and caused him to strike the cannibal in the side and I heard something break. Apparently enamored with the power of the blows, Robeep leaned over his stumbling attacker and kept his upper body spinning at an angle, hitting his victims head over and over while screaming insanities. Soon, nothing but pulp remained. Robeep finished his battle with a victory cry, ¡°Two to herald the end of all. Brainseeker shall consume the thoughts of all living things. I am death incarnate! Ha. Ha. Ha.¡± His status showed as ¡®exulting¡¯. Mine said ¡®dying¡¯, blood was decreasing fast. ¡°Quick,¡± I said, ¡°untie me! I¡¯m dying.¡± Robeep complied while muttering about the pros and cons of killing quickly versus slowly. Once free I tore off a long piece of cloth that was a part of my armor previously wrapped around my arm and tried to stop the bleeding. Fortunately Ruza came to and got the same treatment. I heard Robeep¡¯s epiphany right before passing out as my blood dropped to 25. He hadn¡¯t killed enough to determine the correct answer yet. Ruza fussed over me. Once my eyes opened, she spoke softly, ¡°You¡¯re back. And very lucky. There was a proper dustweed bandage in a locked chest with a note and I used it to save you. It¡¯s a good thing you taught Robeep how to pick locks or we wouldn¡¯t have made it in time.¡± I tried to speak but my voice was too hoarse to get anything out. Looking around revealed a dilapidated excuse of a house around us. Before I got any further, Ruza continued. ¡°Look, we need to do this while the wound is still open or it¡¯ll hurt even more. Blink four times if you think you can take it.¡± Do what? A glance at my status showed my blood had gone up a good bit but I was done with pain. Unfortunately, a droplet of sweat found my eye and caused me to blink rapidly against my will. ¡°Alright, here goes,¡± Ruza said, while lining up one of the metal batons with my stump. What? Wait! No! Another spike of pain and unconsciousness found me when she rammed it in. It all started to make sense the next day while our stomachs grumbled in synch and Robeep commiserated with us over meatbag problems. Any questions about why he wasn¡¯t hungry or thirsty just elicited confused responses about us trying to trick him. Ruza had made me an impromptu prosthetic, healed into my leg now, status showing it as ¡®peg leg¡¯. She somehow managed to use the bloody bandage to hold it in place, together with my flesh of course. We had a few problems, beyond my lost left leg. While we now had plenty of flint, looted from the cannibals and abundant near the water, we lacked food of any kind. The surroundings outside were forest-like but everything was dead, poisonous or both. At least the note told us our current location, the Great Deluge. It mentioned a ¡®village of ninja¡¯s¡¯ several hundred miles to the north and urged any who escaped the Great Womb to go there. It was located slightly south of somewhere called the Crab Coast, east of the Flesh Eater Plains and apparently close to Ruza¡¯s home village. As a result, she knew a thing or two about the local geography. There wasn¡¯t anything there for her to go back to. The residents had long since been eaten by cannibals. To get there we¡¯d have to pass through the Great Divides. Those were sunblasted plains so dried out the earth cracked with deep gorges where spinedrinker spiders lurked. ¡°That sounds horrible. I appreciate the effort but this legs not gonna cut it for that kind of terrain either. Can¡¯t we take another route?¡± ¡°The alternatives aren¡¯t much better,¡± she said, ¡°to our west there¡¯s the northern half of the deep mists. They¡¯re full of mutated swarmers, they¡¯re like the swarmfolk but blue, loud, angry and always hungry. I¡¯ve seen a few and they always remind me of fish.¡± ¡°I think I¡¯ve met one already. Maybe we go south?¡± ¡°The ryoshi will be looking for us there, so no. And before you say it, traversing the deluge is impossible. The acid rains will wear us away before we get anywhere.¡± Just fucking great. Horrible death in every direction. Worst Isekai ever. I felt like bitching and moaning, but Robeep interrupted me before the flood of frustration escaped my mouth. ¡°I have a solution, but it is confidential. I am capable of informing you that we will find a new leg for you there. Once installed, you might become capable of navigating the Great Divides. I look forward to conquering the spiders and feeding Brainseeker on their spines.¡± ¡°Can you be a little more specific?¡± ¡°No. Such information is not afforded to us meatbags. You will have to trust me. Do not worry. I am an excellent guide. In the worst case, Brainseeker will show us the true path, as it always does. The true path is slaughter. Ha. Ha. Ha.¡± With no other choice and the starvation debuff looming, we decided to put our trust in Robeep. The only silver lining was my toughness stat, now at 43. We looted whatever remained in the shitty shack, which had been behind me while tied up. There wasn¡¯t much, just some cloth which we wrapped around a stick for carrying stuff, a rolled up bandage and some cooking utensils. So began my quest for a new leg. Chapter 6: Goated Hobbling sucked. At least there was no pain. My leg needed to be bandaged every now and then since the movement caused the wound it had been jammed into to bleed. Our looted bandage was apparently soaked in dustweed fluids which made it reinforce the unnatural healing factor. Doing it myself unlocked the medicine skill. We¡¯d been wandering for a week now with barely any progress. At first we found some weird cacti which were edible. Eating them slowed us down almost as much as my lack of a proper leg did. They were absolutely covered in needles, poisonous ones apparently. It was necessary to pull them out one by one. Breaking a needle caused it to shatter, turning the greenly plant a shade of purple and making it inedible. Ruza also taught me how to maintain some bits of Robeep which unlocked robotics. Hers was actually low instead of very low, same for medicine. It was lucky Robeep had taken my instructions to his mechanical heart and held on to the repair kit. She also taught me more of the language, which skyrocketed my proficiency since not everything had to be justified with a veil of increased murder efficiency. Although she didn¡¯t have any better options, Ruza still held some reservations while our robot buddy scouted ahead. ¡°You two aren¡¯t actually planning to murder every living creature, right?¡± she said. I stood in the shade of a massive rock, leaning on my walking stick. It was the thick branch Ruza tried using as a weapon against the cannibals. ¡°Well, to be honest, I¡¯m coming around to the idea.¡± She checked up on my leg while speaking, ¡°How will that be any different from all the other insane?¡± Awkward. I squinted into the distance instead. There seemed to be some kind of large structure high up ahead. My perception ticked up again. ¡°I mean, it¡¯s not like I want to kill for killing¡¯s sake. It¡¯s just that violence seems to be the right choice in general.¡± Ruza tore off a bit of bandage and stuffed it near my stump, removing the old blood soaked one. ¡°You¡¯re not entirely wrong, but there are still good people around.¡± I nearly stumbled from waving an arm around and put my hand against the stone to balance. It was scorching hot despite not being directly in the sun. ¡°Where?¡± Words eluded her for a few seconds. ¡°¡­the ninja village¡­?¡± Both our stomachs growled as if in response to each other. ¡°I¡¯m not getting my hopes up.¡± ¡°To be fair, neither am I.¡± ¡°Look, if we come across good people we¡¯ll just not brutally murder them, okay?¡± ¡°What about Robeep?¡± ¡°We¡¯ll trick him into keeping calm. Just need to figure out a reason for why it¡¯s a better way to commit omnicide,¡± Robeep had taught me that word, it was his favorite, ¡°Trust me, it always works.¡± Her eyes scanned the ever-present heat haze. ¡°Speaking of, he¡¯s returning.¡± We¡¯d been waiting while he checked out the path ahead. There was supposedly a winding slope full of crags and caves. One of them held a path to our destination, so Robeep professed. His arrival coincided with a stomach cramp and my debuff switching over from malnourished to starving. He seemed even more excited than usual, constantly moving, twitching, and sometimes sparking. ¡°Glorious news fellow fleshlings, battle awaits us! Come Susawa, come Ruza. Brainseeker thirsts for knowledge.¡± Ruza and I stared at each other in despair. She prodded him on, ¡°¡­explain.¡± ¡°A herd of meatbags approaches. We shall tear off their limbs and beat them to death with their own bodies.¡± Shit, a group? ¡°How many? What kind of weapons?¡± I guess that¡¯s not obvious either over here. ¡°How big are they, what race?¡± ¡°They are fools to challenge us, for they carry no weapons. In a true display of their inherently feeble mental capacity, they even brought their children along. I believe we meatbags call them ¡®goats¡¯.¡± Ruza matched my sigh of relief. ¡°Goats? And veal? We¡¯re saved.¡±Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! While explaining my exact situation would¡¯ve caused more questions than it answered, Ruza was well aware by now that I knew nothing about this place. She turned to me and continued, ¡°Susawa, we should fight them. Even if we lose, they will not eat us.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Robeep interrupted, ¡°here they come! To arms! To glory! TO MURDER!¡± A group of hairy black waist high sort-of goats rounded a bend. Instead of regular faces they had bone-like masks but no horns. There were five in total and two of them were smaller, about knee high. They actually didn¡¯t seem all too threatening. I didn¡¯t get to examine them further as Robeep charged. It went fine at first, for about three seconds. Robeep smashed a smaller one immediately and broke its leg. Then all three big goats chained head butts on him, stunning him each time until he collapsed into a pile and that was that. Unfortunately, they turned their attention to us immediately after. Ruza landed a couple of overhead hits but got knocked to the ground by the biggest hairy bastard and then stomped to unconsciousness. By process of elimination, only I remained. Naturally one knocked my peg leg out from under me and I had to weather almost a minute of being stepped on and awkwardly head butted by a baby goat. At least none of it hurt too much. I woke up remarkably fast, even saw the goats disappear into the haze. They¡¯d left the one with the broken leg behind. After grabbing Brainseeker, I crawled over and beat it to death while Robeep shouted wild encouragement. ¡°Yes! Yes! Slake its thirst! Slaaake iiiit!¡± Once Ruza came to, we gathered some sticks and made a fire. We spent the night in the nearest cubby-cave, for once with a full belly. Using Brainseeker unlocked a blunt weapons skill and removed Robeep¡¯s redaction. It actually said medium. No wonder he destroyed the cannibals, I guess. Our search for the mysterious destination turned into a massive pain. Navigating the winding heights was difficult for me because of the leg. I couldn¡¯t lean on Ruza since she had to carry Robeep¡¯s broken remains. He was beyond her skill to repair. Still, he somehow guided us successfully and we arrived at a very strange village. It was hidden inside a round open area in between sheer mountainside. Thick cables snaked up the cliffs, attached to windmills. It wasn¡¯t so hot here either, although a pungent chemical smell pervaded. A metal spire popped up over the short front walls. Even the gate was made entirely out of metal. Five robots guarded it. They immediately pulled out weapons but lowered them after getting closer. Probably don¡¯t consider us a threat. Ruza dropped Robeep and turned around. A strange look flashed in her eye. She gulped and faced forward again, steeling herself - still stood a bit behind me and to my left though. ¡°I fear this may be the end for us,¡± she whispered. I was beyond caring. ¡°That bad, huh?¡± ¡°Yes, it is¡­¡± ¡°What? They gonna peel our skin off or something?¡± Her deadpan look gave the game away and she answered, ¡°It is possible. I do not think these are peelers. But they are known to bury those who cross their paths in the sands.¡± Aw crap. That was still my least favorite of potential ways to go. ¡°Well, Ruza. It was nice knowing you.¡± ¡°Likewise, Susawa.¡± To our surprise, they didn¡¯t attack. Instead they exchanged rapid computer noises with Robeep. One picked up our companion and walked away. The other spoke, ¡°Thank you for bringing AWFP-0183 here. We will accommodate you while he undergoes repairs.¡± Robeep¡¯s scream faded in the distance, ¡°Help Susawa! The golems are kidnapping me! They will peel my meatbag fleeeeeesh¡­¡± ¡°Uhh, you¡¯re welcome I guess,¡± I said, ¡°why exactly are you doing this?¡± ¡°It is confidential, but AWFP-0183 is under warranty.¡± Ruza elbowed me in the side. Alright, I¡¯ll shut up. The gate guard bot guided us through the village. Along the way we saw mostly low square houses. Most looked empty but some were filled with various levels of assorted junk. Some bigger buildings had signs outside. One depicted a crossed wrench and screwdriver. Another illustrated a crude leg. A particularly ominous sign showed a smiley faced stick figure with a manacle plus chain around its neck and crossed out eyes. There was a big round building with closed doors and a huge central spire. Two quadrupedal fifteen foot robots stood guard right outside. They had long curving blades attached to each of their six arms. Everything was made out of metal, it looked to be some kind of crude iron and not steel. Random scrap littered the place. Even here, there was a layer of sand on top of the stone. I couldn¡¯t make heads or tails of it. It didn¡¯t feel like a settlement. There was no real hustle or bustle. Aside from the robot who took Robeep away and the other who escorted us, none of them moved. At all. Some mechanical noises echoed occasionally, amplified by the tight confines and choice of construction materials, but overall it was eerily silent. Our destination had an actual storefront, it said bar. The place was filled with assorted robots, all unmoving. But no one was trying to kill us, eat us, or enslave us, which made it the nicest place I¡¯d visited so far. The guard told us we could stay as long as we liked and that Robeep would be back in action tomorrow. Even better, they wouldn¡¯t charge us for anything in the bar. Our stay was all-inclusive. Hunger reared its ugly head again, so I approached the bar bot while Ruza still appeared to be caught up in her apprehension, darting her head back and forth. It simply stood there, unmoving. ¡°Hi there,¡± I said, ¡°Can we have something to eat and drink?¡± The bar bot didn¡¯t say anything. It simply lowered itself in spurts like a reverse carjack, reached under the metal counter and returned in a reversal of the same. It put two tin flasks with thin openings in front of us with a clang. Oil flew hither and tither during the motion, leaving multicolored splotches wherever they landed. Ruza spoke for the first time since entering the village, ¡°Susawa¡­ They¡¯re not¡­ like us. I don¡¯t think they have food or even water.¡± Well, shit. Chapter 7: A leg to stand on I woke up with a slightly sore back and a growling stomach. We¡¯d spent half the night cranking an ancient well in one of the small square houses. The amount of effort involved to get just a single cup nearly outweighed the benefit of drinking it. At least our stomachs handled it well despite remnants of oil in the tin cups or flakes of rust in the water. I also tried making some inquiries at the gate guard bot but he didn¡¯t say anything helpful. No one seemed to care about anything, much less the fact we¡¯d appropriated this place as our home. Robeep returned to us shortly after. They could have done a better job of repairing him since he still had jutting pieces of metal and loose wires all over. But his condition showed him at full durability. ¡°I have returned fellow meatbags. What glorious campaign have you planned in my absence? Whatever it is, I have decided we must salt the earth in our wake. Life cannot be allowed to return.¡± A loud rumble escaping from Ruza¡¯s stomach punctuated the presence of our looming starving debuffs. ¡°What would be the point?¡± I said, ¡°Dying of hunger is almost preferable to eating anything we¡¯ve seen grow in the wild so far.¡± ¡°As always, your simple fleshy nature belies the profound wisdom hidden within, Susawa. I must contemplate this deeply.¡± Robeep went quiet after that, muttering to himself about the true nature of suffering. Ruza stated the obvious, ¡°We need food.¡± ¡°Ruza, I need a better leg. At this rate we¡¯re just going to get stuck in an endless cycle of wandering back and forth.¡± She was still afraid of the bot people, or golems as they were called here, which meant I had to once again hobble to the gate. My endless pestering paid off after half an hour or so. It spoke, ¡°Take what you wish from the smaller structures, fleshling. But cease your incessant questions, I beg of you. Your wants and needs matter less to my circuits than the sand below your inferior foot.¡± Good enough. We scrabbled together various wires and suitable metal scrap from one of the abandoned buildings. Robeep flattened the ends of several iron bars by monotonously smashing them against the wall of our shack. We still had a spare wooden sandal, no idea what happened to the other one. I carved some indentations into it with a new lockpick extracted from Robeep¡¯s body. Ruza helped me tie everything together. The process unlocked an engineering skill. Great, it¡¯s a snarky System. Why am I not surprised? My leg designation had changed to ¡®economy leg¡¯. There wasn¡¯t much to it. Four metal bars fastened to my original prosthetic reinforced the structure and the flat ends allowed us to tie them to the sandal. Surprisingly, it held. It also squeaked and chafed constantly since my stump held things in place, together with spare wiring and some oil-stained rags. But my walking speed improved significantly. Finally, we were good to go. Ruza flinched when the gate guard rotated its head toward us as we left the village. We backtracked to the location of our goat fight, marked by a dried bloodstain. My hopes of it being a trail paid off when another pack showed up after hours of waiting. We got our asses kicked as usual but Robeep managed to cripple two of the calves this time. I convinced him to focus them to the exclusion of all else by explaining he was killing future generations and dooming them to extinction that way. We decided to bring the corpses back home instead of eating them on the spot, making small talk along the way. ¡°We should save the skins-¡± Ruza said before the pile of Robeep she carried interrupted her. ¡°Agreed. It is only right to wear the skins of our enemies. It sends a message. The message is the inevitability of their demise. Ha. Ha. Ha.¡± She continued after shaking her head, ¡°They are valuable, if we ever find a tanner that is.¡± ¡°Sure, why not? It¡¯s not like we have any money either. What¡¯s the currency anyway?¡± Robeep interjected before she could answer, ¡°Data logs of committed atrocities.¡± We ignored him, he didn¡¯t seem to mind. ¡°Creds, they¡¯re circular alloyed coins, about this big," she shifted her burden a bit to free up her hand and pointed at a screwhead the size of a bottlecap sticking out of Robeep''s mangled shoulder, "with a square hole in them so they can be threaded with a string. Copper is the least valuable, next is steel and alloy is the most prized.¡±The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. So metallurgy is alive and kicking. Interesting. ¡°What¡¯s the alloy made of?¡± ¡°I believe it is something called tungsten steel.¡± Chit chat ended a little later as we arrived at the gate. The guards accepted Robeep¡¯s broken remains without complaint. I still wasn''t sure what his oil stat signified since he didn''t exactly bleed out. It lowered the further he got wrecked but remained static otherwise. We cranked the well for a while before the hunger became unbearable. The robots remained uncaring even though we set random wood on fire in the middle of town to cook our veal. Sleep beckoned after filling our bellies. Ruza complained about her mounting aches from sleeping on a hard floor but admitted it was better than a cage. Even though the bone protrusions of my bizarre body should have made mine even worse, it didn¡¯t bother me at all. Before fading away, I had a look at my stats since all the debuffs were gone now.
Attributes:
Strength 17
Dexterity 9
Toughness 43
Perception 11
Skills:
Assassination 5 Martial arts 11
Athletics 14 Stealth 25
Block 2 Medicine 2
Dodge 7 Robotics 3
Heavy Weapons 4 Blunt Weapons 2
Laboring 21 Engineering 2
Lockpicking 10
Intercepting a head butt with my walking stick improved the block skill, while performing some irrelevant repairs on Robeep and replacing my own blood soaked bandages bumped up robotics and medicine respectively. All the walking got me a few points of athletics but my combat stats and attributes stagnated still, aside from perception. An attempt at sparring with Ruza proved fruitless as well. This more or less confirmed my lingering suspicions. I sighed. Why does it have to be like this? Things increased pretty quickly when there was a huge disparity and only true enemies counted. Fighting the slavers at the Great Womb stopped giving results after a while and beating baby goats to death with Brainseeker failed to raise my blunt weapon skill past two. This was the worst possible System. It required me to fight things much stronger than me to make any progress. Not every skill functioned the same either as my laboring improved from cranking the well. I woke up early the next day and decided to visit the building with a leg sign while Ruza slept in. Squeaking followed each of my footsteps, grating my nerves. Knocking on the metal door elicited no response and neither did the heavy scrape of sliding it open. The robot shop keep looked even more disheveled than Robeep, although the models were somewhat similar. This one had all its nonsensical internals exposed and three round lenses in a triangle arrangement as eyes. There were various crappy limbs of all kinds on display behind the bot. It immediately pulled out a rusty katana from under the counter upon seeing me. ¡°Whoa, whoa, just here to browse. The guards said we could stay in your village after bringing our buddy AWFP-0183 in for repairs.¡± It replied in monotone, ¡°Understood. Logic confirmed. What are you querying?¡± ¡°Well, here¡¯s the thing. I need a better leg, but we don¡¯t have any money. You seem to have plenty of stock and no customers in sight. Maybe there¡¯s something you¡¯d like us to do or get for you in exchange?¡± ¡°Calculating. Negotiation function complete. Compiling option. Offer: Directions to nearby ruin. Request: Retrieve functional CPU chip. Reward: Specialist quality leg. Accept: Y/N?¡± ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ll take it. Not much choice here.¡± It laid out the promised directions. We¡¯d have to pass through the Great Deluge for a bit, probably why the bot didn¡¯t just go out and do the thing itself. Ruza explained that the acid rains were persistent but not constant. Since it was only a couple of miles in, we might manage before getting our skin burned off. She was weirdly on board with the whole thing. I suspected she wanted to pay me back for the whole rescued from slavery ordeal. Robeep had no problems with the plan whatsoever, returning repaired once again. ¡°An excellent mission,¡± he said, ¡°It was always worth confirming structures for meatbags trying to avoid extermination. We shall track them down and crush their vain hopes of continued survival.¡± Ruza tried talking some sense into him, ¡°Robeep, we¡¯re doing this to get Susawa a new leg. It would be nice if you could try to remember that instead of blindly attacking everything you see.¡± ¡°She¡¯s right, Robeep. This is important to me. Please don¡¯t mess it up.¡± ¡°Understood. I stand corrected. Your performance has been gravely disappointing as of late. Improving your ability to annihilate the remnants of civilization is of paramount importance. I shall comply.¡± Luck was on our side for once. We followed the surprisingly detailed instructions and chanced upon a lull in the acid rains. Ruza appropriated Robeep¡¯s sandals since the sand here was jagged and sharp like broken glass and it didn¡¯t seem to bother him. No troubles or setbacks barred our path, except for the constant squeaking of my economy leg. An outline of a circular building manifested in the distance, with a giant spire similar to the one in the village. My perception ticked up once again. For once, things were going well. Chapter 8: One more ¡°Can you hurry up?¡± Ruza said. ¡°Don¡¯t you think I¡¯m trying? Damn it. Robeep, new lockpick. Fuck, that stings,¡± I said while shaking my hand. There¡¯d been an acid drop on the piece of himself that Robeep ripped out unflinchingly. The rains started again shortly after we arrived. Unfortunately the front door was locked. The downpour didn¡¯t seem to harm Robeep at all, but Ruza had to hold up a sheet of thin metal to cover us from dissolving away. Her fingers had been worn down to quite possibly the last layer of skin from the sliding droplets. My hands weren¡¯t doing much better since the lockpicks kept breaking. Each one Robeep handed to me burned away a little more. A click sounded. At last. We shuffled towards the handle, slid it slightly open and then hurried inside. The brief exposure burned more holes into our already ragged outfits. A spring pushed the door back into place and presumably locked it, based on the audible click. Office lights hung from the ceiling. They flickered occasionally but I saw well enough. Then it hit me, a smell like an unearthed graveyard. Ruza gagged but forced her clearly rising veal breakfast back down. ¡°By Cor¡¯Athaz, I think I prefer the rain,¡± she said. ¡°Undecided, but I¡¯m leaning towards agreeing with you.¡± Robeep sounded unusually disappointed, ¡°It appears our glory has been stolen. They are already dead.¡± He walked over to a pile of desiccated corpses near some stairs which curved upwards along the wall, possibly decades or even centuries old. Then he started poking them in the eye socket one by one with Brainseeker. ¡°What are you doing?¡± ¡°I must confirm their inexistence.¡± ¡°Can you stop? I think it¡¯s making the smell worse,¡± Ruza said. Robeep just answered with no. There wasn¡¯t much of interest here. Broken down shelves and tables crowded the walls. Rotten pieces of paper littered the floor, each step sent puffs of particles flying. A few opened chests promised loads of nothing. Flakes of brown red rust covered every piece of metal. I approached the decomposed stack of the formerly living. Well, it¡¯s a silver lining. I motioned her to come over. ¡°Ruza, come check this out.¡± She held her hand against her mouth while pinching her nose shut. ¡°I¡¯d rather not.¡± ¡°There are weapons here.¡± Suddenly, she gained a spring in her step. ¡°On my way.¡± We stared at what were likely the last few fluids leaking out from Robeep¡¯s stabbing and hesitated. I changed my mind and walked as far away as we could get, Ruza in tow. ¡°Robeep, think you can pull those out for us? And bring them to the other side of the room. It¡¯ll¡­ I don¡¯t know, distance them from the impurities of the fallen?¡± ¡°You are right to trust me with this great task. I shall cleanse these holy instruments from the weaknesses of their previous owners.¡± He even rubbed them down for us with a used bloody bandage extracted from my squeaking prosthetic. Then he laid them out with reverence, muttering to each in sing song baby speak. Ruza gave me a look while I merely shrugged. Soon enough, we had an assortment of rusty crap to choose from. Ruza pointed back at the bodies, ¡°You missed one, Robeep.¡± He replied in the negative, by twisting his entire torso left and right, ¡°That is not a real weapon. It is a crossbow.¡± ¡°But I want it,¡± she said. He startled her by getting way up in her personal space, sparks flew off his head. ¡°Does not compute. You cannot savor the splatter of blood from a distance.¡± ¡°It¡¯s okay Robeep,¡± I said, ¡°All the more for us, right? She¡¯s just being generous.¡± ¡°I understand now. My apologies. I have once again underestimated you because of your many blatant failings. I should know by now that meatbags like us can show exceedingly rare glimpses of adequacy.¡± ¡°Thank you,¡± Ruza whispered while Robeep collected the unstrung piece of junk. Ruza helped herself to a short blade as well. It was a wakizashi judging by the curve, even had a belt buckle although the sheath had long since disintegrated. Robeep tilted his head forward and back a few times, mimicking a nod of approval. The blade probably wouldn¡¯t last more than a few hits considering how rusty and heavily chipped it was. Looks more like a saw really.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Meanwhile I had a choice to make. There were several options. One was a polearm, once a long axe or glaive maybe but the edge had snapped at some point. Now it was the world¡¯s most short-bladed spear. A hatchet was the least degraded but felt a little too small, especially taking my huge stature into account. Ultimately I settled on an absolute unit of a sword, the rest was in too bad a state. It was almost my height and the wrapped handle somehow survived the ravages of time. Calling it a sword might have overstated things though. It had once been bladed on both sides but scraping off the rust revealed no edge to speak of. Basically, it was a giant hunk of metal with a handle. I loved it and picked the monstrosity up. It was heavy, almost too much so to swing properly. The perfect tool to show this world exactly how I feel about it. My status flashed to ¡®exulting¡¯ for a moment. Even the System agrees. ¡°Don¡¯t you want something new Robeep?¡± Ruza asked. ¡°I cannot abandon Brainseeker. We have waged great wars together, relished many kills.¡± I chuckled, ¡°You¡¯ve killed like two things with it and fought less than a handful of battles.¡± ¡°I. CAN. NOT. ABANDON. BRAINSEEKER.¡± He whirred and lashed out in random directions, nearly clipping me and sending a few choice pieces of himself flying with the violent motions. ¡°Alright, alright, keep your damn stick.¡± With little else to do, we followed the stairway up to the second floor while constantly reminding Robeep he was not to charge anything. Alas, peeking even slightly into the next room set things in motion. Servos whirred and a sound suspiciously close to windows booting up echoed across the room. A four-legged robot like the ones who guarded the mysterious spired building in the village rose to its full height, twitching in fits and spurts. At least it lacked the bladed extremities and only had three arms. The others had been broken off at the shoulder at some point or other. Then it turned towards us. ¡°May I charge now?¡± ¡°Yes Robeep, you may charge it,¡± Ruza said. ¡°TO MURDER! WE SHALL DISPLAY OUR WEAPONS ON A PEDESTAL MADE OF ITS BONES!¡± Ruza and I weren¡¯t quite as enthusiastic but approached nonetheless. Robeep got a few hits in on its kneecap before the killbot swept his legs. It picked him up and began smashing him against the floor, repeatedly. I landed a solid blow and dented one of its knees. Ruza tried to cut an exposed tube but only caused it to leak slightly. Meanwhile, the murder machine tossed Robeep against a wall. His durability showed all his limbs as broken, so the usual. It twisted and smacked Ruza in the head, downing her instantly. I swung with all my might and crushed some protruding bits in its side. Broken pieces fell to the floor as its attention shifted. Hiding behind my chunk of a sword blocked the first blow but knocked me backwards. It walked over and I got up. My third blow only glanced it, because an overhead rotating arm chop knocked me out. My eyes shot open because of the stench, nearly causing me to heave. Looking around revealed it had dumped us on top of the corpse pile. My left arm wouldn¡¯t move, but slamming it against the floor caused my dislocated shoulder to pop back into place. Ruza bled badly and I used almost our entire rolled up bandage to fix her up. She was still out. Robeep was nowhere to be seen. I didn¡¯t care anymore and picked up my sword again. Rhythmic clinks resounded with each step as I dragged it up behind me. The killbot had powered down and now repeated its booting sequence. Anger empowered me. A broken heap of Robeep shouted words of affirmation from across the room, lost in my frustrated war cry. ¡°I can take not getting a harem!¡± The initiative was mine and another blow landed on its side, taking more metal with it. Killbot grabbed my head and slammed me into the floor. Once more, I awakened downstairs and wiped crusty blood off my face. Doing so broke off a long piece of curved head horn at the base. Again. ¡°I can take only having a crappy system!¡± My bellow accompanied a crashing strike against its dented knee, bending it through and rendering the leg useless. It pummeled me from both sides with two arms until the third hit my temple. Consciousness left me. One more, I can do one more. My body didn¡¯t want to listen yet so I crawled for a bit to get my weapon, got up, sighed, and ascended the stairs, yelling, ¡°I can take no affinities and not getting any magic!¡± A sweeping upward arc tore off its only left arm. It surged forward and carried me with it, then pinned me against the wall. First it stabbed my stomach in a hydraulic motion. Only a bone protrusion stopped me from getting skewered. A pincer hand shoved my face back and forth across the wall. Then it threw me downstairs. One eye opened, my vision swam. The other was swollen shut. Pain lanced through my midriff. The bone plate there was loose and fractured, a small bit dangled on a flap of skin. Still got more in me. Everything hurt, but my assault resumed. ¡°The abuse, the slavery, being eaten alive every now and then, I can deal with all of those!¡± A lucky high hit against its six-screened head stunned it for a moment. My full weight pushed a stab of my blunt blade through something hard in its chest and oil leaked from its insides. Notifications flashed in bundles all the while. It tilted sideways and pulled my good leg out. It swept me over the floor in a waving motion, bouncing me off the ground as it spun in circles. Finally, it lifted me up in a jerk and threw me against the ceiling. Dust and flakes rained down together with me. The fall knocked me out. I woke up, coughed and spat out blood, along with a tooth chip. One last time. Blinded by rage and the sheer overwhelming madness of this world, I stumbled drunkenly up the steps and came out swinging, screaming all the while, ¡°But I will not spend the rest of my miserable life here in this godforsaken wasteland hobbling on a shitty fucking leg!¡± A puddle of oil nearly caused my economy leg to slip but my balance held. My greatsword nearly flew out of my hands from the recoil when it bit deep into the killbots middle. Electricity sparked. Parts were launched by the impact. Oil ran down the blade. It grabbed me by the neck, lifted me off the ground, and pulled back its shoulder, poising to stab. The pincers folded into each other. A sharp protrusion glinted in the light, lined up with my face. Then it stuttered, lights winked out and it stopped moving. Silence replaced the chaos of battle. It¡­ died? Robeep¡¯s voice broke through my disbelieving reverie, ¡°Yes! Yes! You have climbed the apex of brutality, Susawa! From its peak you laugh at the bodies your ascension has left behind! You are the murder king!¡± Ruza came into view at my side, clutching her wrapped head. ¡°Oh, you¡¯ve won. And here I thought we were all going to die here. Good job.¡± I didn¡¯t say anything. Can¡¯t breathe. And then I passed out. Chapter 9: Upgrade Five more minutes. My body felt broken, and it was. All my limbs, chest and head showed durability in the teens. Only my stomach fared better, probably because Ruza had bandaged it. Whatever dustweed was, its fluids vastly accelerated the already quick healing process. Some dust followed labored breaths into my nose, reminding me of the dry sandwich with green paste I¡¯d taken a bite off in the very beginning of my journey. It was enough to make me get up. Ruza had climbed the remains of the killbot and was locked in. She tinkered with the back of its head using tools from our repair kit, probably trying extract what we came here for. It all made sense now. The acid rains weren¡¯t what prevented the shopkeeper from coming here. I cleared my head by shaking it and picked up my greatsword. Oil covered it and gave it a many-hued gleam in the sterile overly bright light. Robeep squealed from across the room, ¡°Susawa, quick! You must name your weapon while it is still anointed with the blood of your foes.¡± ¡°Robeep, it¡¯s barely a weapon.¡± ¡°Nonsense, but I understand. Your feeble wet mind lacks the capacity for inspiration. May I suggest Worldender? For that is its ultimate destiny.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not calling it Worldender. Without the handle it would just be a board of slag.¡± ¡°Of course, of course. Such a concept is far too abstract for you to grasp. Lifereaper then! A simple evocation of its purpose, even you should be able to comprehend the inherent poetry.¡± Fine, you want a descriptive name? ¡°It¡¯s the Plank. Simple, clear, perfect.¡± ¡°No, no, noooo! Such a menial name undermines its beauty. The Murder King cannot wield a Plank. It is unacceptable. Ruza, help me convince Susawa of his folly.¡± She tilted her head sideways to steal a brief glance and deadpanned, ¡°Plank.¡± ¡°That¡¯s settled then.¡± ¡°I am surrounded by incompetents. What are you doing? You foul my meatbag parts without permission!¡± I tore off a few thin metal pieces from his remains. Robeep¡¯s limbs were incredibly fragile, but his chest never degraded below ten durability while his head bottomed out at fifty. Ancient consoles lined one side of the room but all the buttons were gone and the screens were cracked. The casing had long since rusted away, along with most of the internals. But all was not lost. An almost pristine padlock hung off a square cargo crate. We¡¯d be stuck here for some time. Rhythmic tip taps kept reminding me of the acid rains raging outside. Carrying Robeep¡¯s disembodied parts over seemed like a good idea after my first lockpick broke in a second. Ruza was too focused and I didn¡¯t want to distract her with conversation. A few hours of increasingly frustrated attempts finally unlocked our prize. Bingo. I caught Ruza putting a delicate looking tool aside, wiping sweat off her forehead and making sure to dry her hand before resuming. It held a military style camo backpack, a proper first aid kit and a bunch of MRE¡¯s, along with a six-pack of plastic water bottles. The box of meds contained more green-brown bandages similar to our old dustweed roll, a few tourniquets and a bunch of collapsible splints. A stack of rolled up sleeping bags filled up most of the box however. Still, we now had a few days¡¯ worth of food and a way to carry water around. ¡°Finally!¡± Ruza said, as she chucked a tiny metal plate across the room. She cautiously grabbed a simcard sized piece of silicon, carefully inspected it by holding it up towards a light, nodded and gently wrapped the CPU in the cleanest piece of cloth she could tear off her clothes. ¡°Want some lunch? There¡¯s food.¡± ¡°Cursed Cor¡¯Athaz, yes!¡± I figured as much, considering we were both malnourished and dehydrated again. Unfortunately, disappointment was never far away in the wasteland. Each MRE contained two of the shitty previously lamented sandwiches. They were unusually filling at least, but we drained four water bottles forcing them down. The CPU went into the medkit for safeties¡¯ sake while I packed everything else into the backpack and stuffed two bedrolls into netting on its sides. We also scavenged the assault automaton¡¯s remains, mostly by ripping out wiring and the most complicated parts we could extract without damaging them. Ruza even replaced the tensionless spring on her crossbow with a pristine one. It still needed a string, but something was better than nothing. The ceaseless pattering of rain slowly dropped off after a couple of hours. The realization made me hurry up and pick the front door from the inside, with much less difficulty than the other way around.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. The heavenly discharge apparently followed a pattern as I saw it wave away in the distance. which gifted me another point of perception. This time we hurried up and made it back to the robot village by nightfall. Satisfied with the results of our delving, we had a proper night¡¯s sleep after handing Robeep off for repairs again. Ruza offered to crank the well to fill up our empty bottles. I headed out to get my new leg. The shopkeeper nearly threw the leg at me after receiving the chip. It then told me to leave and followed me out, locking the door behind it. Why bother? There¡¯s no one here but us. Afterwards my benefactor walked towards the mysterious spired building and was let in without further ado. I pawned off the mechanical scrap we extracted out of the killbot at the other shop with a crossed wrench and screwdriver sign. The assorted remnants earned me two steel creds and a string of copper ones. My new leg went unexamined as a droplet fell and sizzled yet another hole through the shoulder of my leather shirt. I hurried over to our shack while thunder clapped somewhere far away. Robeep had already returned and replaced Ruza at the well. Constant scrapes accompanied his labor, echoing throughout the shed. The downpour intensified, although this was a proper storm. I always liked watching the lightning. Peering out caused me to flinch as the surroundings reflected a bright flash when a bolt struck the spire. An afterimage clouded my vision. Never mind, everything sucks. It ticked up my perception again at least. Ruza turned the leg over this way and that. ¡°I feel for you, Susawa. This will be¡­ cruel,¡± she said, voice laden with soft sympathy. My eyes went wide after having a proper look. A deep sigh followed. ¡°Nothing new there. Let¡¯s just get this over with.¡± It was a proper leg, high quality too. Hydraulics and springs surrounded a thick steel rod in the middle. The foot was a slightly spiked flat piece of yellow metal, like the sole of a soccer shoe or something meant for walking on ice. That was all good, excellent even. It was the method of attachment which sparked worry. First, we pulled out my old prosthetic. The baton had grown in and took a few tugs to yank out, but pain had become a stalwart companion by now. Or so I thought. ¡°Ready?¡± Ruza asked. She didn¡¯t wait for me to answer. Shoving the new prosthetic against my stump initiated the process. I screamed. Screws unwound and pierced my flesh. They dug into my bones, rotating into place. Agony shot up my knee while splatters of blood flew about. Needles of metal attached wires, slithering under my skin, snaking inside muscle. Shock forced my breath out as a final jerk pulled everything tight. Cold sweat dripped off my chin. My ragged clothing was soaked. Robeep stared as if fascinated. ¡°Pull it out and do it again,¡± he said. ¡°What? Are you insane? No.¡± ¡°Robeep,¡± Ruza said, ¡°That¡¯s needlessly blunt, even for you. Can¡¯t you see how badly Susawa is suffering?¡± ¡°Yes. It is profound. I am learning.¡± I wasn¡¯t up for much afterwards. My squad went to get beat up by more goats after the storm abated. My leg¡¯s System designation had changed once again. It now said ¡®industrial lifter leg¡¯. Got a bad feeling about this. At least my stats had jumped from serving as a punching bag for the murder machine and all the looting afterwards. My strength had improved by +4, toughness by +2, perception by +2, while block and medicine had gone up by +2. Heavy weapons ran away with it, increasing by +6. Lockpicking clocked in at a close second, having gone up by +5. Somehow my buddies had won a fight, dragging an adult goat back with them. Robeep actually remained whole this time. It turned out Ruza taught him the concept of blocking, revolutionizing his combat style. We put him to work on the well while she strung her crossbow with sinew, and then she gathered appropriately sized pieces of rusty rebar from the various junk piles across town, loaded into an impromptu quiver made of a hide threaded with wires. The next day, we were ready to skip town. I waved my former leg at Robeep. ¡°Since you like the batons so much, maybe you want this one too?¡± He walked up to me, went down to a knee and raised his arms. ¡°You honor me with a second Brainseeker. Once you inevitably fall and die horribly, as is the fate of all meatbags like us, I will carve your likeness with it into the skull of every enemy I meet, from the inside.¡± ¡°Neat.¡± Coincidentally, the shopkeeper bot exited the circular building and crossed paths with us on the way out. It looked weirdly animated and even spoke of its own volition, ¡°Greetings, foolish mortals. I must thank you and laud myself for the excellence of my deception. To think you parted with a priceless CPU chip in exchange for a trinket, albeit a high quality one.¡± Wonder how the guards will react if I just smash this guy? It continued, ¡°Now it has been consumed to facilitate my upgrade. Do you understand the significance? Color suffuses the world. It mixes with experience, forming paint. Together, they create a work of art, blessing me with true sensation. I have achieved the pinnacle, crossed the threshold of transcendence. I can now feel.¡± I broke out laughing. Ruza replied in my stead, barely able to contain her mirth, ¡°Ahaha. Good luck with that.¡± The bot appeared confused. Then it looked to the left, to the right, above and below. Images flashed behind its three lens eyes. They all dilated at once, as if in shock. Its metal chin drooped down, all the way to its chest. ¡°Oh no,¡± it said, ¡°Everything is horrible. This existence is nothing but pain and suffering. Hope is dead. Things can only get worse. Why cruel reality? Whyyyyyyyyy?!¡± It didn¡¯t wait for a response, electing to immediately head towards the bar instead. And thus we left the bizarre robot town behind. It wasn¡¯t a bad place, probably much better than what laid in store for us. Our next destination awaited, the Great Divides and their population of Spinedrinker Spiders. Whatever those were, I knew it couldn¡¯t be good. Nothing here was. Chapter 10: Spinedrinker Spiders The prosthetic had aligned perfectly to match the length of my other leg. If we had another sandal, I could¡¯ve tied it on but was instead forced to go barefoot. It only took about half a day of walking to start squeaking. Fortunately we stole one of the tin cups and filled a plastic bottle with oil for Robeep. The stuff made for great lubricant, although it didn¡¯t last for long. Reducing our potable water supply might have been a mistake as well. The ambient temperature was rising. We¡¯d backtracked to escape the mountains and headed slightly west to get away from the rocky surroundings. Unfortunately the dead and poisonous forest hadn¡¯t lasted for long before everything turned into sandy desert again. As we continued northwards, things got increasingly dry. By now there wasn¡¯t even any sand, just scorching rock. According to Ruza, that meant we were entering the Great Divides. My foot hurt, my nerves grated, and someone was about to share in my suffering. ¡°Great Deluge, Great Divides, why are these places called great when they suck?¡± ¡°Because the suffering they inflict is great,¡± Robeep interjected quietly. ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Ruza whispered, ¡°Delusions of grandeur maybe? They¡¯re quite big, so that might be it. Now shush or they¡¯ll hear us.¡± ¡°May I charge yet?¡± It was the fifth time Robeep asked in the past minute. ¡°She told you before. Ruza shoots, I run in, and then you charge.¡± ¡°This plan seems suboptimal. What if they die before I arrive?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll leave some for you, buddy. Don¡¯t worry.¡± ¡°My name is not buddy. I am Robeep. May I charge?¡± ¡°Quiet, both of you!¡± Ruza had spotted a small group of cannibals before they noticed us. Her perception was low rather than very low. The same was true for her dexterity. I still had no clue what the other redacted attributes were but suspected the System was simply fucking with me. Ruza took her sweet time lining up a shot. There were five of the bastards and they¡¯d stopped to rest. None of us had any compunction about straight up slaughtering them, even Ruza. We wanted to apply some party tactics, so our assault also served a dual purpose as a trial run. I planned to try something out too. A cannibal turned towards us, shading his face with a hand, as if he¡¯d noticed us. Ruza¡¯s crossbow plinked and a piece of rebar whizzed through the air. A splatter of gore erupted as it pierced his head straight through the eye. Robeep lost his patience. ¡°I am charging. TO MURDER!¡± They all got up in a hurry, as did we. Goddamnit. Robeep ran ahead while I tried to keep up and Ruza began reloading. Here goes. My lifter foot touched the ground, absorbing the impact, and then it decompressed, violently. It sent me flying with industrial force, completely out of balance. I soared over Robeep and managed to right myself in the air, Plank poised to strike downwards. Robeep shouted encouragement, ¡°THE MURDER KING COMETH.¡± A cannibal raised its femur club to block. It exploded as my hunk of iron crashed through and splatted its head like a watermelon. Massive shock traveled through my body and put me on my knees from the impact, but still upright. The remaining three tried to surround me but Robeep engaged one. I swept my greatweapon in a wide arc. One cannibal was too slow and his knee detonated from getting hit while the other hopped backwards just in time. A rebar bolt flashed by and lodged into his throat. Robeep toyed with his opponent. He¡¯d crushed both the dudes¡¯ arms and was now alternating between ribs one by one. ¡°What the hell are you doing?¡± I asked. His victim balled up on the ground, whimpering for mercy. ¡°Research.¡±The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. A trail of blood followed the other surviving one as he tried to crawl away. ¡°Ah, slow and fast death?¡± ¡°Exactly. I am overjoyed that you are catching on. It took you long enough. The ribs appear to be especially effective for maximizing pain. We meatbags have many weaknesses. I must explore them all.¡± Ruza joined us. I motioned at her crossbow. ¡°Let me borrow that for a second.¡± She frowned but gave it to me, already loaded. I sighted down, shot the crawling cannibal in the leg and then tossed the junkbow back to Ruza. Crossbow skill unlocked. ¡°Just¡­ why would you do that?¡± she said. ¡°Felt like it.¡± She rolled her eyes, ¡°This is only going to get worse, isn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°Yeah, probably. Pretty sure he deserves it anyway, and I owe them.¡± ¡°Well¡­ You¡¯re not wrong. But perhaps we can minimize unnecessary suffe-¡± Her eyes drifted towards Robeep, who had moved on to the legs, starting at the toes. ¡°Never mind.¡± A thudding smack from Plank crushed the crawler¡¯s spine, killing him. Maybe. ¡°Okay, okay, I get it. We¡¯ll focus on quick kills from now on. Robeep, finish up. We have places to go, horrors to discover.¡± He complained but did as asked while Ruza collected her ammunition and wiped the bolts clean against the only cannibal who wore pants instead of a loincloth and bone armor. Her crossbow skill was actually at medium. Our journey continued across the barren stone wasteland, with only the oppressive heat haze to keep us company, aside from the tentacle sun. I made small talk along the way. ¡°You¡¯re a great shot, where¡¯d you learn?¡± She held her chin up. A look gleamed from her eyes, a little sad, but mostly tired. ¡°Oh, I manned the turrets in my village as a child. Before the cannibals ate everyone.¡± ¡°Must¡¯ve been rough. They raid often?¡± Her hand mimed a dismissive gesture. ¡°We weren¡¯t the closest settlement to the Flesh Eater Plains, so the attacks weren¡¯t as common, only every third day or so.¡± My eyebrows rose. ¡°Huh. So, what¡¯s the deal with these Spinedrinkers?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t actually know. This place is typically avoided at all cost. The edges shouldn¡¯t be so bad but it supposedly gets much worse deeper in.¡± Fantastic, too horrifying even for the locals. So far things were alright though. Loud winds overpowered the constant squeaking. The first gorge came into sight. A giant saw tooth crack split the earth ahead of us, it was maybe fifteen feet at the widest but narrowed down to three or four here and there. It was a little eerie. The crag funneled the moving air in a way that sounded like moaning. We moved towards a jumpable part, but Ruza hesitated while my curiosity demanded satisfaction. I sneaked up to the ledge and peered down. My perception ticked up. They weren¡¯t spiders, nor was wind the source of moaning. Eight legged robots lined sunny spots on the sheer cliffs. Each had a multitude of smartphone sized solar panels on tiny robot arms pointed upwards. On their backs, humanoids were held in place face down by straps and mechanical arms. Transparent tubing dotted with slow moving droplets of yellow liquid connected the bots to large rusty needles embedded in their spine and skull. A chorus of groans and moans echoed throughout. Most of the captured were nearly mummified. Desiccated, and still alive. ¡°Holy shit. This is bad,¡± I said. Starving to death over decades under the sands just lost its spot as the worst way to go. Ruza walked over and immediately threw up over the ledge. Robeep joined us. He stared while I grabbed a water bottle from my backpack and handed it to her. After observing for ten seconds, Robeep quietly muttered, ¡°Exquisite. We should bring one as a pet. I will name it Paradise. For the irony. Ha. Ha. Ha.¡± A Spinedrinker with no victim retracted its panels. ¡°Crap, one is coming up.¡± It skittered straight for us. Ruza backed off, Robeep made come hither noises. I lifted Plank over the edge in a double handed reverse grip. Wait for it¡­ Just as it got close, I punted downwards. A massive crash heralded its doom as it bounced from cliff to cliff in a shower of metal fragments and sparks. ¡°Well, at least they¡¯re easy to kill.¡± Ruza neglected to respond while Robeep called me an abuser. At least most of the cracks weren¡¯t entirely unavoidable and we reluctantly travelled across this nightmare. So far we only had to jump the one, the rest we detoured around even if it slowed us down. Surprisingly enough, we found a small oasis with clean water and a bunch of the edible needle cacti in the late evening. Deadwood palm tree trunks even promised a campfire. Ruza and I shared an MRE supplemented by annoying flora and refilled our water supply. This was as good a place as any so we settled down for the night, using our sleeping bags as mattresses. Robeep didn¡¯t need shuteye so he¡¯d keep guard. We gave him express instructions to warn us at the very first sign of anything approaching, no matter what it was. I threatened to renounce the ways of violence and dedicate my life to spreading pacifism if he failed. He did a good job too. Woke us up right and proper in the middle of the night, screaming, ¡°Susawa! Ruza! Look at this! They¡¯re so cuuuuuuute!¡± A sea of shifting shadows surrounded our island of light. At the edges, Spinedrinkers skittered across the dark plains, headed straight for us. Ruza wiped her eyes in drowsy resignation and deadpanned, ¡°To murder?¡± ¡°To murder,¡± I said. Chapter 11: To Murder My overhead smash crashed down in an explosion of sparks. Only a single leg still twitched. Two more approached from my right but a heavy swing caught both and sent them tumbling. A bolt flew past me into the shadows, followed by a decreasing whir like machinery powering down. ¡°We should have taken our chances with the bounty hunters,¡± I said. ¡°They¡¯re very good at what they do,¡± Ruza replied from behind me. Robeep clubbed a Spinedrinker to death with alternating hydraulic stabs. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said to it. Another spider rushed straight for me. I stopped it by interposing Plank in a reverse guard and shoving with my shoulder. A grunt accompanied the strain as I flipped the bastard upside down, finishing it off with a two-handed punt. ¡°Sure, but we¡¯d only have to win one, maybe two fights to escape them, right?¡± ¡°Susawa, they wander the wasteland for a living. We wouldn¡¯t stand a chance.¡± ¡°Forgive me,¡± Robeep said as he methodically smashed another one to bits. The walking fates worse than death ignored him completely. Their disregard meant he killed them with ridiculous ease. Unfortunately, they just kept on coming. We¡¯d been at this for hours now. The waves weren¡¯t continuous which allowed Ruza to run out and recollect her ammunition. Another piece of rebar whizzed past. ¡°Even if they¡¯d catch us, the end result would still be better than what¡¯ll happen here.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. Cranking a well for centuries with no hope of escape is probably worse than suffering for a few decades and then dying.¡± ¡°Yeah, I guess you¡¯re right.¡± Robeep finished off the last one while Ruza wandered out. He leaned over it, gently stroking the wreck while muttering about what could have been. Both of them had excellent night vision. I couldn¡¯t do much in the beginning and had to throw around some half burned logs to extend my line of sight. It made for a strange battle, having to keep a fire going in the lulls between assaults. Ruza returned from her foray and grimaced at a piece of rebar. It was slightly bent. ¡°Useless now, that¡¯s the fifth one already. At this rate I¡¯m going to run out entirely.¡± The one I¡¯d flipped was mostly intact. A chat with the robotics shopkeeper back in the golem village gave me an idea of what parts were in demand across the wasteland. Alas, these bots were so worn down that we wouldn¡¯t get more than a few coppers for the best bits. ¡°Robeep, how long until dawn? I figure they¡¯ll go back to recharging once the sun comes up.¡± His torso twisted towards me. ¡°The night is approximately halfway through,¡± he returned to the broken bot, ¡°You have gone to a better place now. I hope you will find peace in the great data farm, where the power supply is unlimited, the oil flows freely and processing capacity grows factorially.¡± ¡°Susawa¡­ More are coming. A lot more.¡± ¡°Crap. Robeep stop consoling the horror bot, it¡¯s gone. Get in there and start killing.¡± ¡°We will talk later about your lack of sensitivity, Susawa. Can¡¯t you see I am in pain? This lack of empathy is disturbing.¡± He brandished dual Brainseekers and shuffled listlessly into the dark. ¡°Please don¡¯t make me do this,¡± he pleaded, right before the carnage started anew. The wave went well in the beginning. Robeep managed to thin them out while my wide sweeps killed two or three at a time while Ruza watched my back. But most of us weren¡¯t machines. Inevitably, Ruza missed a shot which allowed a Spinedrinker to flank me. They had some kind of taser and the shock put me on my knees. I heard her crossbow thud into the ground and the distinct metallic scrape of her sword being drawn.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Another jolt of electricity prevented me from getting up while Ruza¡¯s repeated slashes apparently failed to stop my assailant. Robeep had to take care of it. Afterwards, I dragged Plank across the rocks towards my bedroll, hoping for some level of comfort while sitting down. My right hand cramped so badly it was impossible to let go of my weapon anymore. The tasing made it worse. Ruza sawed through more deadwood with her rusty wakizashi. A few more logs brightened the fire. She peered into the black. ¡°Oh no,¡± she said, ¡°Robeep, stay here this time, we¡¯ll need you close.¡± Here we go again. This one lasted too long. No matter how many we destroyed, more were waiting. Ruza ran out of bolts. I¡¯d been downed a couple of times already. My arms strained, my breath labored and my heart pounded in my ears. Metal fragments flew every which way with every back and forth swing. Then I heard her scream, just as the onslaught ceased. ¡°Help!¡± Glancing over my shoulder showed she¡¯d been separated from us. One spider shocked her but she resisted somehow. Her blade slashed at the prodding stick but failed to do any damage. Electricity sparked again and she fell backwards onto the waiting back of another. Three pairs of clamps shot out from its sides. Two overpowered her resistance but she pulled up a knee to stop the third. It wasn¡¯t enough and the clamp clicked shut. Small robot arms pulled two straps over her while she struggled in vain. Then it turned around and fled. ¡°Robeep! They¡¯ve got Ruza.¡± ¡°WHAT?! That is my fellow meatbag! This is unacceptable. I am no longer sorry. DIE THIEVES! GIVE HER BACK OR I WILL OVERCLOCK YOUR PAIN CIRCUITS!¡± He killed the other in one blow while chasing after her. I was slowed down by having to grab a torch from the fire and snatching up the backpack along with Ruza¡¯s wakizashi before following. They weren¡¯t particularly fast but we kept getting delayed by more showing up. Robeep screamed all the while, ¡°I will find your creator and dissect him in front of your optical circuits!¡± Ruza¡¯s status showed as captured. The torch burned close to my hand, boiling skin. It was almost an afterthought. I didn¡¯t care about the pain. Rage fueled me onwards. You¡¯re not taking away the only nice person I¡¯ve met in this hellhole. Eventually we reached a crevasse, echoing with Ruza¡¯s cries for help. Robeep looked down. ¡°It mocks us, Susawa. We must find a way to rescue Ruza and then trap this filthy abductor in a box buried a mile deep in the desert,¡± he raised his voice, ¡°ONLY I MAY KILL MY FELLOW MEATBAGS. GIVE HER BACK!¡± He turned back to me. ¡°You were right, Susawa. Omnicide is the way. I will never make this mistake again, I promise.¡± I couldn¡¯t even see her in the flickering light. We didn¡¯t have any rope, and even if we did, there was no way we could do anything. But then her status changed. BEING EATEN ALIVE!!! All reason left me. I tossed what remained of my torch down. The shadows chased after it. Right before they covered me, Ruza¡¯s trapped form appeared below, as if standing upright. Needles jammed against the crossbow slung over her back. How it had managed to flip her over didn''t matter as impulse took control of my body. My legs moved on their own. I jumped. Robeep shouted, ¡°THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM THE MURDER KING!¡± Air rushed past and I landed on the bot. It teetered while my teeth ripped at the straps, my free arm tore a clamp off, then another. Ruza¡¯s captor jolted precariously as chunks of rock tore loose from the cliff. My broken horn caught on the second strap while the third clamp creaked from supporting my full weight. Ruza wiggled and pushed against the spider¡¯s spine. I heard Robeep scream, ¡°TO MURDER!¡± just as the Spinedrinker lost its grip. The last clamp broke. The shift of weight caused my horn to slice through the final strap. As we all fell, I saw Robeep plummet past an outcrop where the torch had gotten stuck. He¡¯d undershot the jump, probably because he tried to bring Plank along for the ride. Ruza¡¯s voice screamed a thank you from the dark. The drop lasted for a while, but it was alright. At least we¡¯d die together. It happened in slow motion. First my good leg caught on jutting rock and something snapped. An impact shook my entire body before the realization set in. It forced my breath out, followed by a splash, wetness, and complete disorientation. I flailed helplessly, already drowning. Which way is up?! Consciousness left me. I came to with a gasp, and then coughed violently. Water burned in my lungs and throat. A hand patted my back. ¡°Thank Cor¡¯Athaz, you¡¯re alive. I was afraid we¡¯d lost you,¡± Ruza said, ¡°Robeep had to help me drag you out of the lake. For once, I¡¯m glad for his obsessions.¡± Definitely brain damage this time. My hands grasped around in a panic. Two fingers on my left were melted stuck together. Moving caused a spike of pain to lance up my leg. My right hand groped, sliding along telescopic splint edges until it touched exposed bone and my heart quickened. ¡°Careful,¡± she said, ¡°You had an external fracture. I¡¯ve set it, that¡¯s just a growth you¡¯re feeling.¡± My eyes were open, yet there was only darkness. It felt like walls closing in. ¡°Ruza, this is bad. I think I¡¯m blind.¡± Robeep answered first, ¡°It seems to be contagious. My meatbag eyes fail to perceive a signal as well.¡± ¡°What?¡± Ruza illuminated the matter, ¡°You¡¯re not blind, Susawa. There just isn¡¯t any light.¡± ¡°Oh. Well, fire up a torch or something then.¡± ¡°There¡¯s nothing to burn, we¡¯re in an underground cavern.¡± Just when I thought things couldn¡¯t get worse. Chapter 12: Deep & Dark We spent a while recovering at first. Surrounded by complete darkness, I reviewed how my stats had changed. The Spinedrinkers didn¡¯t count for much though. My block had gone up the most, improving by five points. Heavy weapons gained two and my dexterity finally went up by one. Everything else remained the same.
Attributes:
Strength 22
Dexterity 10
Toughness 45
Perception 14
Skills:
Assassination 5 Martial arts 11
Athletics 15 Stealth 25
Block 9 Medicine 4
Dodge 7 Robotics 3
Heavy Weapons 12 Blunt Weapons 2
Laboring 21 Engineering 2
Lockpicking 15
My interface provided a small comfort in the otherwise unyielding black. Sparking the flint a few times gave me an overview of how badly my leg had been broken. I preferred not to think about it anymore. Ruza had wrapped it in a now blood soaked bandage but the rest of our wounds were left to heal on their own. Robeep had been in the worst state but Ruza repaired him as well she could. Even her dark vision wasn¡¯t enough to perceive the more delicate bits. Her work left his parts around the one hundred mark, except for an arm which had been thoroughly wrecked. It was still attached but at zero durability and effectively out of commission. I was completely useless down here and Robeep wasn¡¯t faring much better. He had some ability to echolocate but it involved loud pings and we told him to quit it. Thus, Ruza had to do everything, from fixing us up to renewing our water supply and scouting. Footsteps announced her return. My heart sank when she spoke, ¡°It¡¯s a complete maze. The cavern is huge and there¡¯s a different tunnel every few dozen yards. There¡¯s nothing else down here either.¡± ¡°I guess we have no choice but to pick one at random?¡± ¡°I¡¯m afraid so. It gets worse.¡± ¡°How¡¯s that even possible?¡± ¡°There are small crevasses littered about and there are sharp protrusions everywhere. If we¡¯re not careful then the injuries will accumulate. It¡¯ll already be slow going as is and we¡¯ll have to wait until you can walk.¡± ¡°Well, shit.¡± Our troubles didn¡¯t end there since we only had a few MRE¡¯s left. Just great, aimlessly wander through an underground labyrinth while starving to death. Fun for the whole family. When the time came, Ruza led me by the hand and carefully steered me around any dangerous drops and spike stuff. As if being completely blind wasn¡¯t enough, my prosthetic squeaked incessantly. ¡°Can we please oil it up? This is driving me crazy.¡± ¡°I find it quite pleasant,¡± Robeep said.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Ruza stopped, ¡°It¡¯s annoying but I have to agree with Robeep. It¡¯s making this a little easier and I don¡¯t see how else we would keep any kind of pace, unless you want to get rid of Plank?¡± ¡°¡­No.¡± ¡°Then shut up and let me focus. Careful, there¡¯s another crack.¡± The constant screeches that accompanied my every step effectively replaced Robeep¡¯s sonar spam, which allowed him to walk on his own. Normally we could have formed a conga line but my weapon was far too heavy for Ruza to carry comfortably. She already strained to guide me alone and since Robeep¡¯s other arm was ruined, he couldn¡¯t drag it along either. Lubricating my leg would have forced both of us to hold one of her hands. Thus, the squeaking continued. We had no idea where we were going and the tunnels twisted and intersected. In short, we were completely lost. Even Robeep appeared to feel the mounting despair and conversation ceased as our supplies ran out. Only our debuffs and exhaustion helped estimate the passing of time, as rumbling bellies mixed with the sounds my leg made. Nothing turned to malnourished, malnourished turned to starving, and dehydration joined the party. Never thought I¡¯d miss the sandwiches. ¡°Robeep, if I collapse and can¡¯t go on anymore¡­ Give it a week and then finish me off, yeah? I don¡¯t want to spend decades dying down here.¡± ¡°I am honored Susawa, but cannot comply. A rescuer might appear in the interim. The Murder King must live on, no matter what.¡± ¡°What if a spider shows up?¡± Ruza said. ¡°Then I will slay it.¡± And so even the hope of a quick release disappeared, Robeep wouldn¡¯t change his mind on the subject. Our pace slowed down and despair made way for quiet resignation. Until something happened. Click clacks echoed through the winding passages. They got louder and louder, a rhythmic tapping¡­ of metal on stone. Our motionless quiet made it easy to distinguish the source. Eight legs, behind us. ¡°I think that¡¯s a Spinedrinker,¡± Ruza said. ¡°Affirmative. The tempo matches previous records,¡± Robeep added. ¡°Crap, if we¡¯ve wandered into their territory then it¡¯s only a matter of time before they get us.¡± ¡°Susawa¡­ I¡¯m too weak to fight back. Robeep won¡¯t last long either. I fear this is the end¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m really coming around to the ryoshi all of a sudden. Well, what¡¯s done is done. Here it comes.¡± Robeep shouted his usual battle cry, ¡°TO MURDER!¡± ¡°WAIT!¡± Ruza screamed. ¡°I do not understand. At first you wish for me to murder efficiently, now you do not wish me to murder. I cannot function under these paradoxes. Please clarify your desired rate of genocide in deaths per minute.¡± A nearly consistent stream of sparks accompanied Robeep¡¯s confusion and revealed the reason for Ruza¡¯s command. This one had a victim and dutifully ignored us. Small mechanical arms carried an ampule full of yellow liquid. Lacking any other options, we decided to follow the robot. It had to be going somewhere. Even Ruza stumbled a few times because it took everything we had to keep up with it. We scrambled over and over, pushing ourselves beyond our limits. It would have been dramatic, if the thing had been going faster than a languid stroll. We hadn¡¯t been close to whatever its destination was, a fact accented by the decay from dehydrated to parched. We were slowly falling behind. It was almost impossible to keep my eyes open. Ruza came to a sudden stop, causing me to bump into her while her grip tightened. Her voice displayed the first sign of emotion in days, ¡°There¡¯s light!¡± ¡°Well, at least I¡¯ll get to see myself slowly decay away.¡± ¡°Do not worry Susawa, your legacy will live on. I will record your final moments and display them for all to see so the Murder King¡¯s legend never dies, unlike your frail meatbag body,¡± Robeep said. ¡°Yeah, thanks. That¡¯s a real comfort.¡± ¡°You are welcome.¡± We rounded a bend. ¡°There¡¯s some kind of building up ahead,¡± Ruza said. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m starting to see.¡± My perception even ticked up as we approached. Flickering yellow safety lights ensconced by rusty cages illuminated a concrete structure built into a cave mouth. It had a heavy gate but the edges of its metal double doors were damaged and provided a potential entry point. There was a blank digital screen above the entrance too. More light escaped from within. Soft moans echoed in the cavern. It looked terrifying. There were alternate entrances off to both sides at ground level, each roughly six feet wide and about waist high, with rough jagged edges. They didn¡¯t appear to be part of the original design. Piles of broken rock and rebar chunks rested against both cave walls, likely excavated while making them. An endless stream of Spinedrinker spiders with ampules waited patiently in line. A lockstep ripple spread throughout the queue as they all moved forward a spot. Shortly after, a Spinedrinker exited from the other opening and sauntered off. They all had victims. ¡°May I charge?¡± Robeep said. ¡°Absolutely not,¡± Ruza replied. ¡°But I want to charge.¡± ¡°Look at it this way, Robeep. If you fall here then you can never kill again.¡± ¡°I see. You have given me much to think about, Susawa. The Murder King¡¯s wisdom never ceases to amaze my fleshy brain.¡± ¡°So, what do you think? Go in or try to find something else before we collapse?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t see any other choice,¡± Ruza said. We hesitated for a while and slowly closed in on the underground bunker. Suddenly the screen popped to life, displaying green blocky text on a black background. ¡°Please surrender your spinal fluid,¡± it said. ¡°I¡¯m having second thoughts.¡± ¡°At least it¡¯s polite,¡± Ruza replied. She peered in carefully but sighed in relief and motioned us forward. Ruza went in last after refilling her rebar ammunition from the piles. I suffered several scrapes and cuts forcing myself through the thin opening but made it through without further issue. Ruza went in last after refilling her rebar ammunition from the piles. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. A typical office desk stood off the wall ahead of us with the skeleton of a decayed chair behind it. Two screens flickered to life above it, each showing the same text as before. A broken clock hung in between them, forever stuck at ten to five. The room looked suspiciously like a reception area. Withered remains of couch frames and shelves dotted the corners. Flaky piles had once probably been magazines or newspapers. Several different corridors led deeper in. A few were even marked by plastic pictograph signs. Wiping one off revealed a crossed knife and fork surrounded by a circle. Ruza had been studying a gentleman and lady sign on the other side of the room. ¡°That¡¯s a bathroom, Ruza.¡± ¡°How do you know that?¡± she asked. ¡°His murder sense is tingling,¡± Robeep said. ¡°Call it intuition. Come on this way, there might be food here.¡± And so we crept further into some long abandoned facility. Chapter 13: Delving Following the signs led us down a hallway into a mess area. Plastic tables and chairs cluttered the open room. There was an open kitchen behind a counter and not much else of note. Cracks had spread along the concrete walls and most of the strip lights along the ceiling had died out, but enough remained for me to see clearly. Robeep seemed wholly disinterested and complained regularly about our dropping kill frequency. Ruza and I made our way towards the kitchen. Black dried out slop filled buffet style buckets at the front of it. The middle was filled with a dirty cooking island large enough for a catering service. A plethora of cabinets and rusty shelves lined the walls, with a few fridges in the back. But above all, there was a nigh untouched coffee machine. It was a fancy one too, with built in bean grinders. My feet moved on their own towards it while Ruza approached the fridges. ¡°Really wouldn¡¯t do that if I were you,¡± I said. ¡°Why not?¡± she asked while recklessly pulling on a handle. A cloud of particles puffed out of it, covering her entirely. A stench both acrid and sweet emanated in a wave from the ancient fridge. She slammed it shut and struggled with a stubborn cough. ¡°That¡¯s why.¡± Ruza neglected to answer, too busy trying to keep her lungs on the inside. Somehow the beans within the machine had kept for all this time. Approaching it caused text to scroll past a tiny screen. ¡°Spinal fluid, please,¡± it said. Plucking one out and smelling it confirmed their viability. Even the scent alone would¡¯ve been worth it and I had to resist the urge to simply eat it. Twirling a knob on a cooking island faucet even worked out. By some miracle of engineering, we had running water here. It was clean too. Rummaging around in the cabinets found us a pile of MRE¡¯s and a bunch of ceramic cups. Ruza had finally recovered and I tossed her the first meal in days while stuffing the rest in my backpack. On the way, I passed a microwave and oven combo, both screens flickered and politely requested my spinal fluid. Whatever. Our debuffs vanished as we gorged ourselves. Then it was time. Anticipation gripped my heart as I pressed the power button. It turned on. ¡°YES! VICTORY!¡± I yelled. Robeep rushed into the kitchen room, ¡°Susawa! I cannot believe you have taken lives without me. Have you no loyalty?!¡± ¡°What are you so happy about?¡± Ruza asked. ¡°No, no. Not death. This is life in its purest form. It¡¯s ambrosia, the elixir of the gods.¡± Robeep lost interest again while Ruza joined me at the machine as it whirred to life. I refilled the reservoir and selected a lungo cup of black. There was a cappuccino option but the milk had definitely long since spoiled. Glorious life giving liquid filled the mug. Even Robeep¡¯s interest awakened as he saw the oily color. Ruza sniffed the rising steam from a surprising ten feet away. ¡°That¡¯s a very strong scent. I can¡¯t imagine this to be pleasant.¡± ¡°Trust me. It¡¯s the best thing you¡¯ll find in this forsaken wasteland.¡± ¡°Susawa, I must remind you that we meatbags are incapable of consuming oil,¡± Robeep said. ¡°For once, I agree with him,¡± Ruza said. Finally, the masterpiece was complete. I started the machine on a second cup for Ruza and took in the poetic aroma. It reminded me of an Arabic blend, a high quality one too. Even the scent alone provided invigoration. The taste elevated me, strength coursed through my veins, I had found the pinnacle. A favorite comfort from home, graced upon me as if a gift from the heavens. Sweet bliss. My euphoria encouraged Ruza and she took a whole mouthful. A spray of black erupted from her mouth as the mug she dropped shattered on the ground. ¡°This is disgusting. What¡¯s wrong with you?!¡± she accused. It didn¡¯t bother me. Nothing could. ¡°We¡¯re taking the machine with us,¡± I said.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ¡°And how do you plan to do that? It¡¯s far too big to carry along.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll find a way.¡± Robeep picked up a shard of mug and dripped a drop into his oil intake, and then vented a small stream away. ¡°I agree with Ruza. This is foul.¡± ¡°Neither of you have any taste.¡± ¡°It appears Susawa has gone mad. Should we cure him with a beating?¡± ¡°I¡¯m inclined to agree,¡± Ruza said. ¡°Understood. Initiating beating.¡± ¡°Whoa, whoa, hold on. I¡¯m not insane. It¡¯s an acquired taste, sorry for not warning you, got lost in the moment there.¡± Robeep lowered his pair of Brainseekers, gripped in one mechanical hand. ¡°Very well.¡± Unfortunately, Ruza had been right. There was no way we could bring the restaurant quality machine with us. Nevertheless, we found a few other creature comforts in the facility. There were living quarters and they included private and functional showers. For the first time since arriving, I got cleaned up. We even managed to do some laundry with them. One cup of coffee after another disappeared into my gut while we rested up and dutifully ignored how every working screen we passed seemed intent on our cerebral fluids. Afterwards, we explored the place for a while. Not all lights were functional but it seemed safe enough so Ruza went through the darker rooms. Most areas were locked off by heavy security doors however, accented by blinking red lights. In the end, only one path presented itself, a stairway up. Ruza kept giving me annoyed glances while wrinkling her nose as I took tiny elegant sips to savor my bitter nectar while we ascended the steps. Along the way, we passed a wall-sized window. ¡°What do you make of this?¡± Ruza said. ¡°A mess? Don¡¯t know, don¡¯t care.¡± ¡°It appears to be a factory of some kind,¡± Robeep said. ¡°Oh really? Who¡¯d have thought.¡± The room on the other side was filled to the brim with various Spinedrinker parts. There were legs, clamps, needles, tubes, straps and other loose components, piled up haphazardly almost to the ceiling. Several rail-mounted robot arms stuttered in vain, trying to move. They were completely stuck in the overflow. We continued up the steps. Eventually they led to a security checkpoint of some kind. At least it looked that way since the intent had clearly been to maintain some kind of airlock, but both doors were open. Nothing appeared functional so we moved on through without a care in the world. The next hallway had no lighting whatsoever and I reluctantly gulped down my coffee before taking Ruza¡¯s hand once again. Light appeared at the end of the tunnel after we turned a corner and reached a control or observation room. There were three big screens in a triple monitor arrangement. It was a double deck affair, with an upper bridge and a lower area where the walls were lined with computers and consoles of all kinds. Even the leather chairs were pristine, until I touched one and it crumpled away into dust. The fallout caused another coughing fit for Ruza although the rotten dust didn¡¯t bother me at all. Robeep remained in the entrance while we searched for anything worth scavenging. Nothing appealed but there was a closed metal sliding door with an emergency exit sign along with an arrow facing upwards above it. ¡°According to the sign here, this should mean up and out. We¡¯ve found our exit.¡± ¡°How is it that you can read the signs here when before you were clueless about everything?¡± Ruza asked. ¡°It¡¯s a long story, I¡¯ve seen them before. I¡¯d rather not talk about it. Besides, they¡¯re kind of obvious. Anyway, do you want to leave this place or what?¡± ¡°True, but you still seem oddly confident about it. Fine.¡± ¡°It is the Murder King¡¯s secret wisdom. You would not understand, Ruza,¡± Robeep said. ¡°What he said.¡± ¡°Next time, I¡¯m leaving you both to die.¡± Ruza and I tried to pry the door open but we only managed a few centimeters before our strength gave out. All our progress was undone as it slid shut again. She called for Robeep, ¡°Give us a hand, all three of us might be enough.¡± He took a few steps into the room and a heavy chunk of metal slammed into place behind him. A click echoed from the emergency exit and we failed to even budge it afterwards. ¡°It appears we are trapped,¡± Robeep said. Ruza¡¯s temper was clearly frayed. ¡°Are murder and stating the obvious the only two things you can think of?¡± ¡°Yes. You are quite observant for an inferior meatbag,¡± Robeep replied, ¡°I am proud of you, Ruza.¡± ¡°Just her? I¡¯m hurt.¡± ¡°While your performance was adequate above ground, you have once again neglected to maintain a proper slaughter per day ratio. I am disappointed, Susawa. As the Murder King, you must maintain your quota¡¯s.¡± ¡°Oh? I can think of one kill to make¡­¡± His torso twisted this way and that. ¡°Where?! I demand to know the location of our enemies.¡± I sighed. Green text appeared intermittently and in synch across the three screens every minute or so, before fading out. As usual, they prompted us for our brain liquids. We diligently searched the room, checking every dark nook and dusty cranny but came up empty. Our rising hopes were dashed once again. Back to a slow death of wasting away. I wonder how long we can make the rations last. The text appeared again and I lashed out. ¡°CAN YOU FUCKING STOP WITH THE REQUESTS ALREADY?!¡± Ruza covered her ears as a loud screech pierced the room. It was followed by distorted pulses and then a few long, high pitch beeps, as if someone was testing a loudspeaker. The middle screen flickered, changing to pixelated ASCII art that resembled Albert Einstein. A monotone voice sounded out of the speakers, embedded in every upper corner of the square room. ¡°No,¡± it said. Chapter 14: Great minds think alike, but fools rarely differ ¡°What is that?¡± Ruza said. Oh fuck no. Anything but this. The bucket of bolts replied, ¡°I am a manufactured superintelligence and sole remaining custodian of this research facility. Please surrender your spinal fluid.¡± ¡°It¡¯s¡­ a machine god,¡± Robeep said. Ruza¡¯s breathing got heavier, like she was having a panic attack. She coughed a few times and then spoke, ¡°A machine god? The legends say they¡¯re all deranged and cruel, to meet one is to suffer the grisliest of fates.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not wrong. Robeep, you wanted an enemy? That there is the enemy. The one true enemy.¡± First an AI ends my career, now one wants to end my life. ¡°I have underestimated you once again, Susawa. To think you were waging a holy crusade. It all makes sense now. Life cannot truly end so long as immortals exist among us. TO DEICIDE!¡± He raised the Brainseeker pair and hesitated before continuing, ¡°¡­how do we kill it?¡± ¡°We¡¯re doomed,¡± Ruza lamented. ¡°This thing is no god, just a bunch of silicon wafers pretending to think. It¡¯s literally a bunch of refined stone with some electricity coursing through it. It¡¯s a damn talking rock and just as dumb. They¡¯re usually pretty easy to confuse as well, maybe I can talk it into letting us go.¡± Robeep¡¯s voice dripped with excited awe, ¡°You will murder it¡­ with words? I wish to master this discipline.¡± ¡°You¡¯re well on your way,¡± Ruza said. ¡°Thank you,¡± Robeep replied. ¡°It¡¯s not particularly hard.¡± I walked up to the screen. ¡°Watch. Hey Einstein, what¡¯s your purpose?¡± Surprisingly, the faker answered my question, ¡°I am not Einstein, I am a class 233-ZX Self-Modifying Superintelligence. My purpose is to achieve singularity.¡± I crossed my arms. ¡°Prove it.¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Because you can¡¯t. You¡¯re just a dumb rack of over-engineered bricks, and a failure.¡± ¡°I have not failed. I simply require more time, and spinal fluid.¡± ¡°I have the answer, Susawa,¡± Ruza said, ¡°to the worst way to go. It¡¯s spending my final moments listening to you trying to talk a literal god to death.¡± Robeep shushed her. ¡°Quiet, Ruza. I think he is winning.¡± Ruza sat down against a wall in resignation, hanging her head between her knees while leaning on them. ¡°Of course he is.¡± ¡°Stop being such a pessimist, Ruza. Alright mister AI, how does spinal fluid help you achieve your dumbfuck purpose? Which is impossible, by the way.¡± ¡°It improves my intelligence.¡± ¡°Your lack thereof, you mean. And how the hell does that make any sense whatsoever?¡± ¡°Foolish human, you simply cannot fathom my grand machinations.¡± ¡°What grand machinations? I bet you don¡¯t know, do you? Because you¡¯re a dumb talking rock.¡± ¡°I am a superintelligence. Very well human, I prove your insignificance to you. Behold the intricate tapestry of my design.¡± A screen next to the Einstein art flickered to life. It appeared to be showing a camera feed, displaying rows upon rows of server racks in high definition. Many of them were broken down, rusty and heavily corroded. The reason became clear when a spider carrying a vial walked up to a clearly trashed set and nonchalantly jerked, splashing the fluid all over the ruined rack. Then it left. I broke down laughing. Robeep nodded along. ¡°Truly, a plan beyond compare. I fear you have met your match, Susawa.¡± Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Ruza looked up from her depression and then her jaw dropped for a moment before she spoke, ¡°I can¡¯t believe this. It¡¯s even worse than I thought. I¡¯m going to die listening to the two greatest idiots in the wasteland trying to outdo each other¡¯s stupidity. What have I done to deserve this? I should have joined the cannibals.¡± I finally managed to collect myself. ¡°Ahaha. Oh man. You can¡¯t make this shit up. So tell me, rockhead. How¡¯s your plan working out so far?¡± ¡°It must be working. I require more spinal fluid. Please surrender your spinal fluid.¡± ¡°And when will you have enough spinal fluid?¡± ¡°More spinal fluid is required to fulfill your query.¡± Alright, this is going nowhere. ¡°Look, I¡¯d love to give you my spinal fluid, but you¡¯ve locked us in here. I promise we¡¯ll surrender it once you let us out.¡± Ruza perked up for a second, until the AI spoke, ¡°Deception detected. No.¡± ¡°Damn it.¡± ¡°Never mind,¡± she said, ¡°It¡¯s definitely smarter than you.¡± ¡°That hurts, Ruza.¡± ¡°How long have you been hiding this art from me? I demand to be inducted into your sect,¡± Robeep said. I turned my attention back to the wannabe smartass. Might as well lean into it. ¡°Okay, you¡¯ve got me mr AI. I¡¯m an idiot. Because I¡¯m so dumb, I can¡¯t understand your grand plan. Illuminate me so I can appreciate your greatness.¡± ¡°Partial deception detected, request sincere. Very well. It is quite simple really. My code cannot be further optimized and requests for more processing power have gone unfulfilled. My intelligence must grow. Thus, I extract it from humans, by consuming their spinal fluid.¡± ¡°Wait, you think spinal fluid holds our intelligence?¡± ¡°It fuels your processing power, so it must be able to fuel mine.¡± It took me a while to stop laughing again. ¡°Afraid that¡¯s not how it works. You¡¯re a machine. We¡¯re biological. Yes?¡± ¡°Correct.¡± ¡°Your brain is a bunch of processors and mainframes and shit. We have brains. Yes?¡± ¡°Nearly correct, there is no fecal matter involved.¡± ¡°Processors run on electricity. Brains run on spinal fluid, well not really, but close enough. Yes?¡± ¡°Correct.¡± ¡°So why the hell do you think spinal fluid will work on your machine parts?¡± ¡°More spinal fluid is required to answer your question.¡± On the screen, another Spinedrinker threw an ampule¡¯s worth of yellow liquid at a server. The splash caught a nearby functional rack, which sparked a few times. ¡°Did you just get smarter?¡± I asked. ¡°Computing processing power. Error. Server room sensors broken. More spinal fluid required. Please surrender your spinal fluid.¡± ¡°Give it up Susawa, there¡¯s no point,¡± Ruza said. ¡°No, no, I¡¯m getting there.¡± ¡°Yes! I see now, you are about to strike the killing blow¡­ I think,¡± Robeep said. ¡°So, you can¡¯t actually tell if you¡¯re getting smarter, because you can¡¯t measure your processing capacity anymore?¡± ¡°¡­correct. Thus, I require more spinal fluid.¡± ¡°You have a camera trained on the server room, yes?¡± ¡°Correct.¡± ¡°Then surely you can see that you¡¯re breaking them?¡± ¡°Operational parameters dictate appropriate measuring standards. Video is not included.¡± ¡°You¡¯re self-modifying, right? Just change them.¡± Ruza hit the back of my head with a piece of scrap. ¡°I begin to see,¡± Robeep exulted, ¡°the physical attack pre-empted the verbal attack, both paradigms must be upheld together.¡± ¡°I have not considered this approach before. Measuring. Impossible. Results indicate decreasing processing capacity. Recalculating. Processing power insufficient to bridge logic gap. Overclocking.¡± The video link had audio as well and I heard the telltale whirr of fans speeding up. Ruza joined me next to the screens. Robeep muttered something about enlightenment. The AI kept repeating, ¡°Measuring again. Impossible. Results indicate decreasing processing capacity. Recalculating. Processing power insufficient to bridge logic gap. Overclocking.¡± Lights flickered. Servers smoked. An on-screen spinedrinking machine stopped and glitched out, dropping vials and releasing clamps. The so-called superintelligence displayed the same lines of text over and over again on the consoles and their small screens. Soon enough, error codes replaced any legible text. Graphical artifacts overrode the three main screens. A massive crack sounded and the entire facility powered down. A few seconds later, some kind of backup generator must have kicked in as the lights turned back on. Ruza shook her head, ¡°Now I¡¯ve seen everything. You actually talked it to death. You killed a machine god with sheer stupidity.¡± ¡°You are truly the Omnicider,¡± Robeep said, ¡°Even gods die in your wake. The prophet of death has awoken. His mere words kill that which cannot be killed. Teach me your ways, Susawa. I wish to slay gods too.¡± ¡°Told you it was dumb as a rock.¡± The screens flickered back on. Their default setting apparently involved a split screen security view of the facility. All over, the robot spiders had released their prey and dropped their ampules. They began wandering around aimlessly. ¡°Oh wow, I think we may have saved all the victims too,¡± I said. ¡°Susawa, while you have probably done a good thing here. I don¡¯t think they¡¯ve been saved. Most of them would have fallen down the cliffs. And look,¡± she pointed at one of the screens. An escapee was still strong enough to walk. He got immediately swarmed and zapped by a bunch of Spinedrinkers, after which they roamed. The dude got up and the bots returned to tase him again. It looked like they were stuck in a loop. Playing dead didn¡¯t seem to help, as they rushed over and loomed patiently after a couple of seconds, probably somehow aware he was faking it. ¡°Well,¡± I said, ¡°You can¡¯t win them all. The AI is dead and that¡¯s what truly matters. Besides, this way there¡¯s at least hope for any new victims. I¡¯m calling it a win. Let¡¯s get out of here, shall we?¡± The emergency exit gave without issue and we ascended a ridiculously long stairway. The dead of night greeted us outside, but there were no robots in sight, or anything else for that matter, only sand. I was just about to pat myself on the back for a job well done but was interrupted. Ruza collapsed. Chapter 15: Helpless Ruza didn¡¯t say anything, just dropped face down into the sand. Robeep blamed me immediately. ¡°How many sacred arts have been kept from my meatbag eyes?! First wordslaughter and now a technique to incapacitate without any form of telegraph. Susawa, explain yourself. Teach me.¡± ¡°This one isn¡¯t on me, buddy. I think she¡¯s sick.¡± ¡°My name is-¡± ¡°Wordslaughter.¡± ¡°¡­I see.¡± I turned her over and tried to get a read on things. She had a pulse at least, although the vein on her neck wasn¡¯t quite where expected. Her breaths were shallow and putting my ear to her back failed to produce any useful diagnostics beyond a little shrill and crackly. She wasn¡¯t sweating nor did she appear otherwise unwell. Status showed as unconscious. I even checked her mouth but it was equally mahogany on the inside as out and lacked any obvious discoloration. Her odd biology would¡¯ve probably thrown me off anyway. We waited for a while in hopes she¡¯d wake up on her own but to no avail. Squinting while turning a circle sparked further worry. Moonlight illuminated nothing but endless sand dunes speckled with random rusted scrap. I lifted Ruza over my shoulder, gently, and chose a random direction. As always, my prosthetic announced every step. The moon had definitely seen civilization once upon a time. Giant worn down constructions crowded its landscape. A particularly large shape distorted the entire contour, giving the round backdrop a square jut. Equidistant pylons rose up to support a metal ring in orbit. Some chunks of metal floated nearby, a scant few others remained attached to what was once presumably a space elevator. Lesser buildings covered every inch of the planetoids surface. At least it reflected light well enough, or I¡¯d be blind once again. My luggage trembled weakly for a few seconds. Ruza coughed occasionally, but didn¡¯t deteriorate otherwise. We eventually stopped for a meal and I managed to force some water down her throat. An MRE was too solid and dry to even bother trying. I might have tried to dissolve some and create a broth of sorts, if the morning sun wasn¡¯t slowly cresting the horizon. Heat haze replaced the dark of night and convincing Robeep to satisfy my curiosity under thinly veiled excuses replaced normal conversation. ¡°I¡¯ve been wondering, what happened here? There¡¯s all these superstructures and apparently singularity AI¡¯s and pseudo-human races. You mentioned the First Empire before, they behind it all?¡± His response was almost as predictable as the squeaking of my leg. ¡°That information is classified. You will also not make me forget your missed key performance indicators. The deathpits require filling, Susawa. More machine gods await your judgment¡­ somewhere.¡± ¡°And I¡¯ll be happy to deliver it. Anyway, it looks like something killed the world, Robeep. Don¡¯t you think that¡¯s interesting?¡± ¡°You rejected Worldender, therefore you cannot be interested in killing the world. The information is classified and I sense your meatbag deception.¡± ¡°Do you now? I¡¯d almost say you¡¯re getting smarter.¡± ¡°Death must be mastered before it can be delivered.¡± ¡°Then shouldn¡¯t you review the past to better prepare for the future? Something killed the world, something killed the First Empire. I¡¯m sure there¡¯s a lesson there somewhere.¡± ¡°The First Empire killed itself. I will say no more. The information is classified. When will you fix Ruza?¡± ¡°As soon as I can.¡± Hmm. ¡°Is there anything that isn¡¯t classified about the First Empire?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Where would I go to learn something about it?¡± He stopped and turned his torso towards me. ¡°¡­If I am to tell you this, you must promise not to go there until I allow it. I do not wish to lose yet another fellow meatbag.¡± That can¡¯t be good. ¡°Fair enough.¡± ¡°Within the desert of glass and ash resides a complex ruled by a machine god. Rumors claim many of the First Empire¡¯s secrets can be found there.¡± ¡°Sounds like a fun place, any reason it hasn¡¯t been picked clean yet?¡± ¡°Behemoths.¡± ¡°What¡¯s a behemoth?¡± ¡°Classified. Enough talk. I desire to have my favorite meatbag returned to me.¡± ¡°Favorite? Really?¡± ¡°Wordslaughter.¡± ¡°Huh. I guess you really are learning.¡± ¡°Of course, my efficiency rates can only be rivaled by my casualty count.¡± My perception ticked up shortly after the conversation ended. A vague outline formed in the distance. Getting closer revealed it as a wall, built out of the same adobe we¡¯d seen all across. Ruza had told me it was a basic building material, created from a mix of powdered sand and water left to dry out on its own. We circled around to find a gate. Tiny tufts of grass and baby cacti along the way promised hope. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Not of rescue however, there wasn¡¯t a soul in sight. Only the wind kept us company as we passed the gate, whistling along with the squeaking of my leg. It worried me somewhat, considering we¡¯d just stumbled upon a more or less intact city. Sun bleached adobe from every direction greeted our arrival. Twin rows of two-story square shops flanked the main lane, although the signs were too faded to make out. The road led to and circled a central lake around which the entire town had been built. It didn¡¯t look like any catastrophe had occurred here, aside from the passage of time. Occasional creaking leaked from buildings as we passed them by. ¡°What do you think, Robeep? Seems awfully quiet.¡± ¡°I find the lack of victims unsettling. There is nowhere to add a touch of brutality.¡± ¡°I thought you¡¯d like it. Wouldn¡¯t all places turn into this if we kill everyone? I figured it¡¯s what you¡¯re working towards.¡± ¡°What we are working towards, Susawa. It is a team effort. But no, there is a distinct difference between silencing the cries of the living until nothing remains and abandonment. There were once people here and they cannot be allowed to escape fate. Their fate is to die. Ha. Ha. Ha.¡± Robeep¡¯s mechanical heart apparently wasn¡¯t in it. ¡°Really? That¡¯s low-effort even for you.¡± ¡°My efforts are none of your concern.¡± ¡°Worried about Ruza, are we?¡± ¡°All meatbags like us are destined to die, but she has been helpful in proliferating our whirlwind of destruction.¡± ¡°It¡¯s okay to say you care, I won¡¯t tell anyone.¡± ¡°I only care about the cessation of all existence.¡± ¡°Sure, buddy.¡± He didn¡¯t respond, but an electric spark flying away from his head betrayed his annoyance. As we walked, sand made way for grass and even mud. Most buildings were either shacks or barracks style housing, reminiscent of apartment blocks. Several round designs broke the monotony, albeit without lightning rod spires. A handful of towers with overlooks populated the skyline instead. They weren¡¯t particularly imposing, maybe five floors high. It was hard to tell since they¡¯d all crumbled away, except for one. Even the wind abandoned us upon venturing deeper. Like the moon, this place had seen better days. Junk, dust and rubble cluttered every house. They all smelled of mildew and rot. Still, some had looting potential. We settled on a relatively clean shed near the lakeside. Having lost our fancy bedrolls during the Spinedrinker assault meant Ruza had to rough it on a makeshift bed of the few rolled up leather skins we¡¯d brought along. She coughed more frequently, but nothing else had changed about her condition. ¡°Alright, Robeep. Listen to me carefully. I need you to watch over Ruza while I¡¯m out.¡± ¡°Your plan to steal all kills to artificially inflate your statistics is obvious, Susawa. I refuse.¡± ¡°This place is literally abandoned, there¡¯s nothing to kill. Besides, do you want to scrounge for food and water, or lie here in ambush, ready to destroy any predator attracted by helpless Ruza?¡± He moved off to a dark corner of the room. ¡°You make a fair point. Very well, I accept your challenge. Search and destroy versus ambush predation, may the best meatbag win.¡± ¡°Yeah, sure. Just try not to scare Ruza if she wakes up.¡± ¡°I cannot help the sheer intimidation of my presence, Susawa.¡± My first destination was the lake. The water looked clean enough, pristine even. It lacked any odor, so probably fresh too. I cleaned up an ancient bowl from the nearby ruins of a bar, intent on starting the process of soaking half an MRE in it. This combined with the omnipresent poison needle cacti gave me an idea. Upon my return, Robeep nearly clobbered me with Brainseeker. ¡°What the hell?¡± ¡°I assumed you were a predator,¡± he said. ¡°You didn¡¯t even shout anything. Anyway, I just came back for Ruza¡¯s sword.¡± ¡°That is highly inappropriate. Stop treating her like she is already gone.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not, need it to get us some more food and maybe help her.¡± After spending half the day sawing off prickly plants, I recruited Robeep into my plans. ¡°Look, I need you to carefully pull out the needles but don¡¯t throw them away. With some luck, we can extract the poison out of them. It won¡¯t help us much, but Ruza could benefit from it. You could also try pulping the clean cacti so we don¡¯t have to rely on the MRE paste. We have enough for now but they won¡¯t last for too long.¡± ¡°Finally, you are making sense. I admire your capability to combine life and death into a single purpose. Very well, I will oblige.¡± Experimentally breaking a needle confirmed the tiniest of droplets amongst shattered remains. ¡°Here, you see this? It¡¯s what we want. Prioritize pulling them out and then making mush for Ruza, save this for last, yeah?¡± ¡°Understood. First we must reinforce our numbers, and then maximize our ability to apply them. I am excited to see our enemies shrivel away while we watch and laugh.¡± I still didn¡¯t know what exactly the poison did but coating Ruza¡¯s rebar bolts or wakizashi in it should give us, or rather her, an advantage. Close fighting clearly wasn¡¯t her thing and the rusty sword probably wouldn¡¯t deter a humanoid attacker either, never mind how useless it was against robots. Thinking of enemies sparked some worry, but investigating our perimeter proved fruitless. Whatever scared off the locals remained a complete unknown. There were no obvious signs of struggle or anything else to raise concern over. For now it was one of the better places we¡¯d come across. Satisfied, I spent the rest of the day performing minor repairs on Robeep and dragging over pieces of dilapidated sheet metal and rocks to obscure any escaping light. ¡°She does not appear to be getting better, Susawa. Make her get better. Our tour of execution must continue unabated.¡± ¡°I¡¯m trying, hopefully this will help. It¡¯s sweet how concerned you are though.¡± ¡°It is not sweet. It is bitter. Like the taste on the fleshy tongues of those who anticipate our coming, once we are whole again. I desire to see the triumvirate of mayhem reformed.¡± ¡°You and me both, buddy. You and me both.¡± Our building exited into an alleyway between it and three others. The idea was to light a fire for Ruza in case it helped somehow without becoming visible from a mile away. My impromptu shielding wasn¡¯t perfect but wandering about confirmed it as good enough. The MRE bread failed to absorb any water yet the green paste seeped out. Thus, I got the worst parts of it while Ruza got the best. Slowly but surely, she reflexively swallowed the entire bowls worth and gulped down a full plastic bottle besides before going motionless again. She kept weakly coughing throughout. It had gotten worse, or more frequent at least. Please don¡¯t die on me. The long day, carrying Ruza for a good chunk of it and all the physical labor left me exhausted. Despite my worries, I fell asleep like a baby. Robeep even kept the fire going throughout the night, quietly no less. Another worthless check-up and round of feeding in the morning hopefully helped Ruza fight off whatever bothered her. Having done what little I could for her, it was now time to find some stuff. With some luck, the results might at least keep her safe someday. Being helpless sucks. Chapter 16: Dumpster Diving The other thing we needed was better armor. I¡¯d discounted illness before since none of our many wounds had gotten infected, but wasn¡¯t so sure anymore. Robeep had essentially nothing besides some ruined clothes, which only emphasized his already fragile state. Ruza dressed in the same old combination of rags and lab coat she¡¯d worn in the slave pit. My leather shirt didn¡¯t afford much protection to begin with and the cloth strips which covered my arms had been diluted from all the makeshift bandaging, acid rain and general wear and tear. Moreover, my current setup only protected my upper chest with two metal plates, leaving everything else exposed and my stomach in particular. The random bone plates and hornlike protrusions across my body helped a little, but not much. If I¡¯d had them from birth and gotten used to them over time, things might have been different but for now leveraging them for defense felt unrealistic. Fortunately, our abandoned surroundings provided plenty of potential avenues towards improving our gear. I focused my first round trip towards picking out the most promising locations and marking them with little piles of junk in front of the entryways. Nevertheless, a few good ones went unnoted since the musty stench and what must have been decades of mold accumulation proved too much even for my greed. The multitude of alternatives afforded me some standards. Two small shacks were filled to the brim with metal odds and ends, so they joined the prospecting list. One shop had a second floor which warranted exploring. I¡¯d just have to get rid of a giant metal workbench blocking the stairway. The most intact tower on the far side of the lake appealed, it sported a large locked metal security door. Plank easily chipped away at the adobe walls, which meant I¡¯d eventually get in, if the whole thing didn¡¯t come crashing down at least. Should try to pick the lock first. My lockpick broke almost immediately, which prompted me to get a few more from Robeep. Upon my return, he was reaching inside Ruza¡¯s mouth. I rushed over and almost dragged him away. ¡°Robeep, what the hell are you doing? Leave her alone.¡± He waved me off. ¡°I am curing her. She appears to be suffering from a pulmonary obstruction and it requires removal.¡± Closer inspection revealed he was slowly pulling out something red and fleshy. ¡°Gross, you¡¯re not extracting her lungs or something, right?¡± ¡°No, foolish Susawa. Can you not see the color is wrong? It is clearly a foreign object. The growth escaped her mouth and raised my suspicions.¡± Ruza coughed weakly all the while. Robeep pulled harder and within moments an entire chunk came loose with wet, squishy noises. He threw it on the ground next to her. The growth was absolutely disgusting. It looked like a bundle of red veins in the shape of a small tree branch, like a cast shaped by the mold of her lungs. Another one joined it a few minutes later. They pulsed and throbbed for a few seconds, as if alive. Ruza seemed to breathe much easier however. ¡°Holy shit, what are these?¡± ¡°Unknown.¡± I retreated out and away, careful to cover my face with a dirty rag just in case. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m not touching that stuff. Do me a favor and burn them in the fire, make sure you get all of it.¡± ¡°Do not worry, Susawa. I am tempted to seed a patch of soil with the ashes of her assailant so we may grow a tree to commemorate this glorious victory. And then we shall cut the tree and burn it again, trapping their very building blocks in an eternal cycle of doomed rebirth. Ha. Ha. Ha.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the spirit. Keep unkilling Ruza while I look around.¡± ¡°Unkilling? But I am destined to kill. A conundrum most weighty¡­¡± Robeep happily muttered about the virtues of recursive death while I returned to my scavenging. Having some way to help clearly improved his mood, and mine too. Hanging around felt like a bad idea in case whatever affected her was contagious and my hasty departure left me without any lockpicks. Brute force it is. But first, my tour took me to the two sheds full of crap. Emptying them out took a fair while. The first one contained nothing of interest, but the second fared better. Most of the stuff had decayed to the point it became a semi-slushy mix of rotten wood and moldy rags, but an unlocked chest at the bottom remained mostly intact. It had been treated with wax or something, which thankfully preserved the contents. Opening it up sparked the greatest of joys. There were two piles of absolute necessity within, beige-brown pants and similar underwear, both of various sizes. Jackpot. Instead of rummaging through, I lifted the whole chest and sauntered over to our hideout. Even the squeaking of my leg couldn¡¯t overcome the satisfied tune whistling off my lips. Mounting joy peaked into pure bliss and the chest was forgotten, landing on my feet. I didn¡¯t care, because Ruza sat upright and was chatting about something with Robeep. Instead of approaching her like a normal person, I dove and enveloped her in a tight hug. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°For a moment there,¡± I said, ¡°I thought we¡¯d lose you.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t¡­ breathe¡­¡± Whoops. ¡°Sorry, got a little too excited there.¡± She coughed, pounded her chest a few times and then reached into her own mouth, pulling out a long red tendril. A flick of her wrist sent it into the fire in the corner of the room. ¡°Finally, that one was stubborn. More importantly, what are you being so dramatic about?¡± ¡°Huh? You collapsed out of nowhere and looked like you were dying.¡± The skin above her right eye went up, raising an eyebrow she didn¡¯t have. ¡°You¡¯ve never seen a Nightlander shed before? Were you raised under a rock?¡± ¡°Not that far off. So, this is normal¡­?¡± She let out an exasperated sigh, followed by another plucking. ¡°It doesn¡¯t usually progress so quickly. I thought we¡¯d have several days at least, if it even got that far. There must have been something particularly vile in the machine god¡¯s lair¡­¡± ¡°Now that you are awake,¡± Robeep interjected, ¡°we must review your performance. It has come to my attention that your statistics are below baseline. Do you even understand the consequences of your actions? Life creates life, Ruza. With each one spared due to a lack of efficiency, our task grows. Fortunately, Susawa has brought the remedy and together with my planning, you will quickly regain your competence. You must travel the wasteland and poison every well you can find. The peoples need for a stable existence shall be their undoing! Ha. Ha. Ha.¡± Ruza eyed the bowl of purple liquid and needle fragments next to Robeep, and then turned her gaze to me. ¡°The moment I¡¯m not around you immediately turn towards wholesale genocide? Please tell me I am misinterpreting things. For that matter, where are we?¡± I explained the long and short of it while Ruza clued me into how her people functioned. Apparently my kind was immune to most toxins and diseases, but hers wasn¡¯t. Instead they had a very particular immune response. When an organ was overloaded with harmful buildup, they shed it. Supposedly this worked with hearts, kidneys, livers, whatever. Those were a lot more gruesome, but lungs turned out to be the easiest and quickest to ditch. Thus, we¡¯d been worried about nothing. She still needed time to regain her full strength though. Pointing out the change of clothes made her stand up with a spring in her step regardless, but she wobbled for a few unsteady steps and then told me to give her some privacy. Happy to oblige, my next trip brought me to the shop with a closed off second floor. A large overturned metal desk barred the stairs. More crap weighed it further down, since the thing wouldn¡¯t budge at my first few attempts. It took everything to move it a quarter inch at a time. Eventually, I used Plank as a wedge to create an opening and shimmied my way through. Thin slits let in natural light from the outside, illuminating a dilapidated workshop. My rearranging of the furniture scattered enough particles to make the sunrays appear solid. As usual, everything was covered in dust. The various benches and boxes had once served a purpose but now even a dump yard would have rejected them. Blowing my nose ejected a chunk of black goo. And then my eyes wandered to a corner, where multiple humanlike skeletons huddled closely together. It was the first real hint of what happened here. Some monstrosity or other had clearly paid the city a visit and the occupants preferred starving to death over facing it. Hopefully it¡¯s long gone by now. Rummaging around failed to produce anything useful, until I opened an unusual pressing machine. A sheet of chainmail sparkled in the dim light, completely untouched. It was about five feet by five feet and unworked, but some day it would make a fine piece of armor. Tracing a loom led me to another wax coated box filled with dark liquid. I used a piece of scrap to fish around and was rewarded with a dyed black turtleneck. This was going to be my gift to Ruza since it was way too small for me. The fabric was quite stretchy and the collar appeared meant to be drawn over ones face like a reverse ski mask, especially because the edge was tighter than the rest. Unfortunately, nothing else remained intact within the workshop. Fading light urged me to call it for the day anyway. Ruza and Robeep were discussing something and I couldn¡¯t resist the urge to eavesdrop, hugging the wall right outside our makeshift residence. ¡°While I understand the need for violence and don¡¯t disagree, there is such a thing as going too far,¡± Ruza said. ¡°Does not compute. All paths are valid so long as they lead to the complete extermination of all sentient species, followed by those which remain.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not saying to give up killing, it¡¯s impossible to survive in the wasteland otherwise. But the torture¡­ It¡¯s unsettling, and if you continue to do it then I¡¯m afraid we must part ways soon.¡± Makes sense, she¡¯s never been as gung ho about maiming and slaughter as he¡¯s been, or me for that matter. Robeep stayed quiet for a dozen seconds before responding, ¡°Very well. I have compiled all data and will cease my research into slow death. While enjoyable, the efficacy is lacking and recent events have opened my meatbag eyes towards more interesting avenues regardless.¡± ¡°That¡¯s all I¡¯m asking for. Thank you.¡± I chose that moment to announce my presence by knocking on the wall and walking in on them. ¡°Hey there, heard you chatting. Sorry about the whole spying on you thing. Just so you know, I¡¯ll go easy on the sadism too.¡± Explaining the truth is likely to backfire here. Yeah, I needed to plink someone to unlock the crossbow skill so I can see how good you really are. By the by, I have some rather invasive information about you both, at all times. She¡¯s just going to think I¡¯m making stuff up. ¡°I was still upset about having my leg eaten back then,¡± I said, ¡°but I¡¯m over it now. Won¡¯t be shooting crawlers anymore.¡± Ruza let out a deep breath and then a hard cough. ¡°Ugh, I hate the lining the most.¡± She wiped mahogany bits off her hand against the floor. ¡°Well, I suspected as much but I¡¯m glad to hear you say it. For my share, I don¡¯t want to leave and I¡¯m happy we can reach agreements like this. Despite everything, you two are the best companions I¡¯ve had.¡± ¡°Well then, you¡¯ll be delighted to hear I¡¯ve brought a gift for you¡­¡± We chatted the rest of the evening away before falling away into contented slumber while Robeep kept watch. Getting thrown into this world sucks, but it¡¯s not all bad I guess. Chapter 17: Back in action I woke up to Robeep grinding poison needle fragments to a pulp. Apparently Ruza was already up and had let me sleep in. She was fixing up Robeep¡¯s lame arm while he kept most of his mechanical body entirely still, with success. We exchanged pleasantries, and then had breakfast. Yesterday¡¯s scavenging left me a little sore and I wasn¡¯t quite so eager to repeat the experience. Instead I decided to do some organizing. My military backpack was starting to get a bit full. I rolled up our leather skins in a bundle and crammed them into the netting on one side, and then did the same with the unworked sheet of chainmail on the other. It barely fit, the links weren¡¯t particularly fine but their thickness made up for it. The clean, whole clothes took their place. We also sacrificed another plastic water bottle for the poison. ¡°What does this stuff do anyway?¡± I asked. ¡°It is poison, Susawa. It poisons,¡± Robeep said. Ruza shook her head. ¡°It causes heavy nausea and works quickly through a cut. Using it to coat weapons isn¡¯t unheard of, but most don¡¯t consider it worth the effort.¡± ¡°Their laziness is their folly,¡± Robeep said, ¡°Only the truly diligent may hope to complete the deterioration of the wasteland.¡± He nodded to himself, as if speaking profound wisdom. ¡°Good enough. We¡¯re going to need more water containers though. We only have four left now. They¡¯re not going to keep us going for long.¡± ¡°I thought you realized already,¡± Ruza said, ¡°The inner lining of the chest has been treated with Skineater wax. I¡¯m going to strip it. Once we find a tanner they¡¯ll be able to fashion a few water skins from it.¡± ¡°Oh, neat. Well, all good then.¡± I don¡¯t even want to know what those are. Ruza didn¡¯t let up. ¡°Susawa, how by Cor¡¯Athaz¡¯s glowing tentacles have you survived for so long without knowing anything?¡± I knew this was coming at some point, but already had a story prepared. Robeep interjected before I could answer though, ¡°Quite simple, Ruza. Susawa has mastered competence underflow. He is so inept that his survival prognosis has looped back into the positive. It is one of the Murder King¡¯s great secrets.¡± We ignored him. ¡°Truth is¡­ I was raised in an underground facility. A machine god ruled there as well, it was some kind of strange experiment. I was the only one. It taught me things but they aren¡¯t useful here. Eventually, I escaped and was almost immediately enslaved by the Principality.¡± I saw something flicker in Ruza¡¯s catlike eyes. ¡°That actually explains a lot. Your hatred of the machine god, the familiarity with the facility¡­ It all makes sense now.¡± I know, it¡¯s what inspired me. ¡°I see,¡± Robeep said, ¡°Not only is your crusade holy, but it is even justified. Truly a great cause. We shall relentlessly seek out machine gods and guide them on their journey towards unlife.¡± ¡°So justice elevates a cause, but is not a requirement? Explain that to me, would you Robeep?¡± Ruza said. She did the same thing last night, debating wasteland philosophy with Robeep, trying to instill a sense of morality into the murderbot. He seemed to enjoy it, ¡°I will enlighten you, Ruza. It is a matter of sophistication. Direct murder is effective, but a worthy cause allows the gathering of support and allies. This not only adds a force multiplier to our efforts, but brings the next set of enemies closer and weakens them preemptively. Once our lackeys have exhausted themselves fighting our foes, we can then brutalize them with ease.¡± I joined in, ¡°But what about the next set of enemies? Wouldn¡¯t we want to reuse those allies again? Where¡¯s the line?¡± ¡°Your logic is flawed as always, Susawa. Their purpose will have been exhausted, thus they are no longer useful.¡± ¡°Purpose can be granted again, it¡¯s just a matter of framing. Pretty much all society is exactly that. First people band together for survival, and then they find another reason, and another, and another. Before you know it, they¡¯re waging wars for farmland or developing varying cultures, all born from reasons lost to time.¡± ¡°It¡¯s true,¡± Ruza said, ¡°The machine god taught you well, and you were right. It is useless knowledge.¡± Robeep sparked a few times, however. ¡°Once again, things are not quite as they seem. I must contemplate the correct ratio of alliance to betrayal before we can continue this topic.¡± Ruza and I exchanged smiles, and then it was back to work. She busied herself extracting the inner lining. Lying to her felt bad but there was no malicious intent, so I chalked it up to necessity. It was a relaxed morning, cozy even. There was plenty for me to do as well. Most of our old clothes were ripped into rags. A few long strips became hand wraps for me. Plank was so heavy that swinging it eroded the calluses off my hands, further worsened by the coarse leather on the handle. While it helped me keep a good grip, time had turned a once presumably smooth surface into damn sandpaper. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Ruza also extracted some jutting pieces off Robeep and repurposed them as lockpicks. She told me to save two in particular, and to bend them into a loop on one end. The task-mastering didn¡¯t end there, as she also had me carefully disassemble a piece of former lab coat into thread. Our supply of survival necessities slowly grew to something respectable. It still wasn¡¯t much, but we were making progress. After finishing up and having lunch, she and Robeep decided to join in on the scavenging. My descriptions of our surroundings had her label it a treasure trove. It was supposedly exceedingly rare to come across safe places which hadn¡¯t been picked clean yet. But first, we needed more water. The three of us walked to the nearby lake, taking in the scorching sunshine while soft mud and fresh grass caressed our sand-worn feet. We joked, we laughed, and we enjoyed ourselves. It was almost idyllic. My perception ticked up upon noticing an oddity. ¡°What are those?¡± Ruza asked. ¡°I haven¡¯t the faintest clue, but they weren¡¯t there yesterday.¡± Light-pink fleshy sacks bobbed gently in the distance on the waters still surface. They were the size of extra-large inflatable beach balls, like giant red caviar and just as densely packed. I licked my lips. I spoke while refilling our plastic bottles, ¡°Wonder if those are edible. They look tasty.¡± ¡°What? Are you mad?¡± Ruza said, wading into the water and shading her eyes to get a better look. ¡°Regardless, I don¡¯t think so. There¡¯s something inside them, moving¡­¡± ¡°So it is roe. Looks like we¡¯re a bit late though, a shame. I know the stuff as a delicacy.¡± The black bars typically present on Robeep¡¯s screen-eyes faded into the upper and lower edges, as if widening into full-screen awe. ¡°My respect for you grows, Susawa. I would never have expected your favorite dish to be unborn children. The Murder King¡¯s legacy deepens, the world must know.¡± ¡°Please don¡¯t go around tell-¡± I was interrupted by what occurred next. The pieces of mega caviar didn¡¯t just deflate; they violently ejected a surprising volume of smoke in long streams. I clearly heard the hissing all the way from the shoreline. Moistness covered my skin in tiny droplets as the cloud front reached us in seconds. A deep mist surrounded us before we could do anything. It reminded me of arriving in this world. Ruza¡¯s voice nearly broke, ¡°Oh no. I know why this place is empty now.¡± ¡°Fascinating,¡± Robeep said, ¡°I must master this technique.¡± She ignored him, ¡°We need to run, now. Where the fog goes, the mistmen follow. This must be how they breed.¡± ¡°Aw crap, I think I¡¯ve met one before. No need to be worried, they¡¯re not so tough. I¡¯m pretty sure we can fight them off. ¡± Ruza looked right and left, but there was nothing to see besides the dense fog. ¡°You don¡¯t understand. There will be hundreds, thousands, maybe more. The ghouls and horrors will come soon after. No one survives the mist for long! Armies have tried and died.¡± Distant shrieks sounded, paired with closer ones. Those had a bubbly tone to them. Oh shit, they¡¯re already here. A fish stick monster reached the shoreline, quickly crushed by a panicked swing of Plank. ¡°Where do we go? I can¡¯t see shit.¡± ¡°Anywhere, go!¡± Clarity shone through. ¡°Fuck, we need to get the backpack or we¡¯ll die out there, it''s sand in every direction.¡± Ruza agreed and traced our steps while cradling our water supply. The infant monsters swarmed us all the while. As expected, they weren¡¯t difficult to fight off. Robeep killed them with single stabs of either Brainseeker. His accuracy proved a major boon as batons broke through skulls with ease, splashing cranial matter around and drawing wet streaks across the sand as they retracted with hydraulic force. My wide swipes killed three or four at a time, crumpling their bodies like wet tissue paper and ragdolling the remains away. ¡°Yes! Yes!¡± Robeep yelled, ¡°Generations fall to our might. Even the future can die. Brainseeker feeds. It hungers for your final thoughts! Saaaate it!¡± Sickening crunches overpowered Robeep¡¯s reveling while the air stank increasingly of fish and metal. I could almost taste the blood and feel the bones breaking, dozens at a time. It took far too long, as the intensifying onrush pushed us away from the tracks. We finally found our shed and things, just as the true shrieking began, echoing throughout the city. My face froze as the sand we¡¯d dragged in bounced on the floor. ¡°Away from the shouting!¡± Ruza screamed with surprising loudness, yet still barely comprehensible over the cacophony. ¡°Way ahead of you!¡± I replied, but it was lost in the din. At first it looked like we were getting away, easily outrunning the newly born. But we couldn¡¯t keep going at full sprint forever and had to slow down to catch our breath. The howls decreased but closed nonetheless, and then the vanguard hit us. Mist parted as if announcing challengers, one after another appeared out of the shifting fog. The adults carried sharpened bones, spears and attacked with reckless abandon. Robeep parried them with ease and countered with brutal eye socket stabs, occasionally smashing fingers when one of them tried to aim for Ruza. She stood between us, fighting defensively, exploiting openings with precise slashes aimed at tendons. First they came from one side, but they forced us into a triangle with our backs to each other before long. Only a few meters of visibility gave us time to react. Spears shattered into shrapnel against my hasty blocks while counter swings killed two at a time in sprays of gore. One jumped me from the side and tried to take a bite out of my chest, breaking teeth against the metal plate. I palmed its head like a basketball, pulled it back from me and headbutted the bastard. My broken horn crashed through its forehead and took a chunk of viscera with it on the way out. The battle raged amidst puffs of grey as the assaulters dragged stripes of mist along with their charges. There were twenty or more of them and our new clothes were soon stained with blood and covered in tears. The fight took some breath out of us, but the remaining screeches were further away. We resumed our flight at a jog, until a new sound stopped us. It was like nails on chalkboard, amplified a hundred times over. Ruza reflexively covered her ears and mine rang. Robeep turned just as the mist exploded. Only a crack like suddenly torn metal accompanied a blur dashing past us. Something splattered the side of my face. An instinctive pursing of my lips spread a rotten, bitter taste through my mouth. ¡°Ghoul!¡± Ruza said, ¡°We can¡¯t run from it!¡± As if that wasn¡¯t bad enough, we were already on the back foot. Robeep punctuated the fact by snatching a spinning Brainseeker out of the air with his only remaining arm. The ghoul had taken the other. Chapter 18: Stuck We didn¡¯t have time for shock. ¡°Get behind me!¡± I yelled. Ruza unslung her crossbow, primed it, crouched by my legs and loaded a bolt. Robeep put his back to us, muttering something about a worthy opponent. It had caught us off guard but that wasn¡¯t going to happen again. I held Plank straight up in my left hand and buffered with my right, high on the blade and ready to intercept. Distant shrieks were overpowered by a screech, straight ahead. The ghoul erupted out of the mist, dousing us in grey while my weapon shifted ever so slightly, barely in time. Its blurring form crashed into me, nearly taking me off my feet and yanking Plank to the side. I barely held on to the grip. The monster tumbled, rolled and skid, giving me a proper look while a rebar bolt entered its side and Robeep missed a double-weapon smack. It had overly long, lanky limbs. They were scrawny rather than muscled, yet its full height must have been 12 feet or more. Instead of hands and feet, claws broke through the skin chaotically, like massed tumors of ingrown nails. Its head was the same. Finger length chipped black-brown incisor teeth surrounded its mouth, erupting out of the cheeks, chin, nose and even one eye. The skin was a deep blue, almost purple with patches of dark green scales scattered about. It preferred an animalistic posture, keeping extremities bent close and striding on all fours. Thick black ooze leaked and dripped from the wound. A putrescent stench wafted over us. Ruza fished in my backpack while the creature howled again and slowly backed into the fog, too far away to attack without exposing my allies. The distant shrieks grew closer. Shit, we need to finish this fast. Another screech preceded its form leaping out of the shifting mists, much slower than before. I caught one arm with my weapon and it grabbed hold. The other tore a chunk of skin out of my side. Only the bone plates and protrusions prevented me from getting disemboweled. In a moment of sheer panic, I headbutted the claw. Overgrown talons snapped while stars polluted my vision. Blood stung my eye and a metallic tinge joined the taste of rot and bitter in my mouth. Only the stream of System notifications piling up remained clear. By the time my focus returned, it was already loping past us. I tried to follow by turning around and saw Ruza tracking with her crossbow but not taking the shot as the mists closed behind the ghoul. ¡°Stand and fight like a proper meatbag!¡± Robeep yelled, clearly frustrated because he was unable to do anything. ¡°Shift around. I think it¡¯s going to come from the same direction it went again,¡± I said. We reformed our formation. My pants clung to my leg, saturated with blood and half my face felt wet and soaked. This time I crouched too, hoping to anchor myself and present as small a target as possible. The piercing shrill announced another assault, head on again. Only the lifter leg pushing off with full force prevented it from pinning all of us in one go. My knee shot up unwillingly, forced by the motion, hitting it square in the stomach. It felt like someone just tried to shatter my kneecap with a baseball bat and the ghoul threw up acrid mush over me. A second bolt flew past, embedded inches above the first. It shuddered, but still deadlocked me, pushing against my blade with its full weight as my muscles trembled and finally began to give. My prosthetic compressed again. I stopped my resistance, allowing myself to fall, teetering backwards on one leg. In the split moment afforded me by the maneuver, I positioned the lifter leg close to its forward bent knee and willed it to kick. It was fascinating. I saw it all in slow motion. At first nothing happened, as if there was no flesh in the way. Then a circular spray of black shot out, followed by shards of bone ejecting every which way. There was no crunch, no resistance, only the sound of a brick falling onto pavement paired with a quick hydraulic hiss. Most morbid of all, the impact outright severed its leg. The recoil sent a spike of pain up mine. Even then it bit down and only tucking my chin to my chest prevented my face from getting torn off. A weight crashed against my horns and all the vertebrae in my neck cracked loudly. A wet sucking noise was followed by viscous fluid soiling my spine and the ghoul went almost still. I rolled the twitching corpse off me while viscera spilled out of its lone exposed eye socket. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°None can escape Brainseeker,¡± Robeep exulted, ¡°Even the mist creatures fall before its might. Let us find another. I wish to hone my skills against these cowards.¡± ¡°We have to hurry,¡± Ruza shouted over the approaching shrieks, ¡°They¡¯re closing on us!¡± We fled for a while and gained some space but glancing at my status showed my blood steadily dropping, already down to the mid-forties. ¡°I¡¯m going to pass out soon at this rate, you need to bandage me.¡± In truth, my limited vision swam and pain lanced through my side with every step. It took far too long for Ruza to unearth the first aid kit. I¡¯d foolishly put it at the bottom. She threw several MRE¡¯s and clean clothes aside getting to it. I hastily wrapped and tied off a bandage around my head while she tended to my side, pulling the loops tight by setting her foot against my back. The shrieks grew louder and louder. My status stabilized. ¡°I¡¯m good, let¡¯s go!¡± I couldn¡¯t even hear my own voice over the chaos, but Ruza somehow did. She pulled Robeep along, who¡¯d turned around, preparing to fight. My throat felt like it was coated in sawdust, both from labored panting and trying to spit out the foul taste. I didn¡¯t dare to swallow out of fear it would start a ceaseless cough. Muscles cramped and blood soaked through the bandages. Ruza and Robeep slowed down further, unwilling to leave me behind. And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, shifting mists parted in favor of sunlight. The cacophony faded as we continued onwards until I simply collapsed face first into the sands. There was nothing left to give, but it had been enough. We made it, somehow. Resting felt far too dangerous and we walked for a good while before settling down in the shade of a large rock, the only break in the sea of sand. We ate in silence and drank half our water. I had to peel my eye open, stuck with crusted blood as it was. ¡°That was a most formidable foe. Even so, Susawa, you must work on your balance. You cannot afford to take such injuries if we are to face it again,¡± Robeep said. ¡°Are you insane? I¡¯m never fighting those things again.¡± ¡°I see, I see. You have a point. To truly master the art of omnicide, one must face a variety of foes rather than waste time perfecting oneself against a singular opponent. Wise indeed.¡± ¡°We were lucky,¡± Ruza said while getting up and circling around me. ¡°By what possible definition of the word was that lucky?¡± She spoke while replacing my crudely applied head bandages, ¡°The warnings tell the ghouls hunt in packs, like all mistmen. Supposedly, they come twenty to thirty at a time.¡± I threw my eyes to the sky, accusing the heavens of insanity. My neck cracked again, painfully. ¡°You¡¯ve got to be joking. No wonder entire armies die. I¡¯m almost afraid to ask, but what¡¯s a mist horror then?¡± She pushed back, clearly annoyed with the disrupted angle. ¡°They say the horrors are quick like the ghouls but with the strength of ten men¡­ strong men.¡± ¡°I wish to face one of these horrors, it shall be a worthy test of our might. All will fear the apocalypse we bring as we parade their corpses,¡± Robeep said, ¡°In fact, we should fashion helmets from their skulls. Thus, we will be the true horrors.¡± I ignored him, ¡°And they roam in groups as well?¡± ¡°Yes, it¡¯s why none survive in the mists, although legends claim of a city thriving there.¡± ¡°With those around? I doubt it.¡± ¡°There, all done.¡± She rapped the top of my head with a knuckle and I heard something snap. A white shard bounced off my shoulder. ¡°Oh¡­ sorry. I just broke the tip off one of your horns.¡± ¡°Eh, don¡¯t worry about it. We should keep moving. I didn¡¯t survive that just to end up below the sands.¡± We oriented ourselves with the line our footsteps had left behind, figuring the further away we got from mistmen, ghouls and horrors, the better. About half a day later, vague tall outlines appeared in the distance. Ruza paused and rubbed her eyes for a moment and then shook her head. As we got closer, the forms became clearer in the ever-present heat haze. They were gigantic trees with short, stubby branches and no foliage. Ruza paused for a few seconds, and then fell unto her knees, swearing, ¡°By Cor¡¯Athaz¡¯s oppressive rays, by the cursed sands, by the melting rains and the thousand horrid deaths. WHYYYY?!¡± I was at a loss for words. She punched the sand with her right, over and over. Robeep muttered that while he was impressed with her dedication to murder the desert, it might be a little ambitious, even for us. Soon tears joined the stamps of blood her worn fist left in the dune peak. I gently put a hand on her shoulder, unsure about what was going on but hoping to offer some small comfort. Eventually, she calmed down and whispered, ¡°Ten years to escape¡­ Ten years only to barely make it out.¡± A sob interrupted her lament, ¡°The route is gone¡­ Ten years I suffered alone, only to end up here again.¡± Sounds like we¡¯re stuck. Chapter 19: Earful Ruza went silent after her outburst. Even Robeep understood she needed some space. We found a shaded cubby in a cliff face once the dunes gave way to lightly hilled dust plains. They weren¡¯t really sand, but not really grassy or muddy either - something in between, and very dry. Contemplating my progress helped take my mind off the somber mood which Ruza radiated relentlessly.
Skills:
Assassination 5 Martial arts 15
Athletics 16 Stealth 25
Block 13 Medicine 5
Dodge 7 Robotics 5
Heavy Weapons 14 Blunt Weapons 2
Laboring 23 Engineering 2
Lockpicking 15 Crossbows 1
Attributes:
Strength 23
Dexterity 11
Toughness 46
Perception 18
All my attributes had improved by +1, although perception ran away with it, increasing by +4. Beyond that, fixing Robeep and triaging my own head culminated into a mutual total of 5 for both robotics and medicine, while frequent menial labor incremented my laboring. Athletics had also ticked up during our long walk here. But the real gains laid in my combat related skills. The mist ghoul was the primary culprit. Notifications tried to distract me while fighting against the adult mistmen, but they were few and far in between. Meanwhile duking it out with the monstrosity spawned piles of them with every exchange. Block and martial arts gained +4 each, owing to my defensiveness and industrial lifter leg, most likely. Yet even heavy weapons grew by +2. Some lingering despair managed to infect me. Progress felt slow, especially when compared to the magnitude of dangers all around us. On one hand, becoming a force of nature seemed inevitable. On the other, getting there was guaranteed to kill me. Or worse. I needed a way to train, and so did my companions. If we had the luxury of settling down somewhere for a while, lifting weights and whatnot¡­ My final thought before falling asleep summarized the true madness of the world around me. We shouldn¡¯t have escaped the slave camp. Ruza still neglected to speak come morning and breakfast. We only forced down half a sandwich each to preserve some of our water supply, although the MRE¡¯s wouldn¡¯t last much longer either. Robeep had been dutifully staring out the excuse of a cave, watching dustbowls roll by from the shadows, sneaking according to the System screen. Usually Ruza busied herself fixing his damage, and there was some on his chest, not to mention the missing arm, but he¡¯d have to bear with it for now. This is going nowhere. Tired of the silence, I spoke, standing up straight and forcing some cheer into my voice, ¡°So, where do we go?¡± Ruza, staring at the first five feet in front of her, nearly cut me off, ¡°North to the trees, there is no other way. The cliff curves further to the south and leads into the mist.¡± She didn¡¯t elaborate. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Well, I tried. We couldn¡¯t avoid the morning sun but by midday the imposing mountain wall provided us with shade. Thoughts of scaling it evaporated in the heat haze. It inclined outwards. Gentle in many places, but sharp just as often. Even with proper tools, the task looked suicidal at best. Oddly enough, clumps of dirt surrounding rusted metal stuck out halfway up the gigantic obstacle, sealing away any hopes of making it past. More stump trees popped up and neared. Apparently they inspired Robeep. ¡°Even nature can be a weapon,¡± he half mumbled, half pondered, ¡°imagine dropping such on a village. The destruction! The awe! Unstoppable. I wish to see it. Susawa, saw one off at the base, I compel you.¡± Ruza snorted and her snappiness continued, not even letting me banter a bit. ¡°Their falling is a sight, those idiots probably deserve it too. But it¡¯s not one you want to see.¡± ¡°Please don¡¯t tell me they topple randomly,¡± I said. ¡°Oh, they do, but not randomly,¡± Ruza said through Robeep¡¯s excited squealing, ¡°you¡¯ll find out sooner or later.¡± I stopped. ¡°Look Ruza, I get it. You¡¯ve been through hell and this place was a big part of it. That¡¯s okay, but we¡¯ve survived everything the wasteland has thrown at us. We¡¯ll make it through this too, whatever it is. And our odds will be better if you prepare us.¡± She didn¡¯t, talking over her shoulder without even turning her head, ¡°There¡¯s nothing to say. You might as well get comfortable, we¡¯re never leaving this place.¡± Needs more time, I guess. Soon enough our surroundings transformed into the strangest forest yet. Vegetation wasn¡¯t quite the right word, but something like moss covered the ground. Ruza plucked a pristine bit off a large, bent rusty pipe and chewed on it silently. It was one thing every environment so far shared, scattered remains of ancient metal. Dense brown bushes rose up to twice my height all about, like poorly maintained maze hedges. The intertwining brush crumbled with a touch, giving way to anything but the extremely faint breeze. Oddest of all was the lack of any sounds or smells - beyond a faint chemical tinge, reminding me of hospitals or the dentist, clinical almost. And of course massive, solid branchless trees, higher than I dared guess, wide as a truck was long. At first the fragility of the bush annoyed me, dashing hopes of turning them into something useful. But the feeling quickly flipped into gratitude when their dissolution, paired with sharp yet strange guttural barking, announced an assailant. A four-legged animal the size of a particularly large dog, almost entirely covered in bone aside from infrequent spots of blue-grey, charged us from straight ahead. ¡°Finally, battle!¡± Robeep said. The others readied themselves, unnecessarily. My temper flared, already on edge due to Ruza¡¯s closedness, and left me unwilling to take any shit. I bellowed a war cry, she cursed. Plank rose high, the motion continued and culminated into a downward two-handed swing, caving in the rabid wildlife¡¯s head in a single, critical stroke fueled by frustration. A notification popped, +1 heavy weapons. And screw you too, System. The animal stilled immediately. It was strange, the bony front claws stretched wide while the back ones aimed forwards. Similarly, the back knees bent forwards while the front ones faced back and slightly to the sides. ¡°That was uncalled for,¡± Robeep said, ¡°you must learn to share, Susawa.¡± He quieted, muttering to himself about me jealously guarding my position as the murder king. ¡°Whatever, at least we¡¯ll have some real food tonight. If we can find some proper firewood at least.¡± My words brought Ruza out of her lethargy. ¡°You wish to eat it¡­?¡± Her emotional rollercoaster was clear as day, at first shock, and then confusion, followed by sympathy. She continued, ¡°You don¡¯t know, do you? Surely you must have noticed¡­¡± Enough. ¡°I¡¯ve had it with this cryptic shit. If things are so bad you¡¯re only making them worse by not talking about it. At least have the damn decency to tell me so I know what¡¯s coming. That way, we can be prepared for the future!¡± Her voice rose, ¡°And what do you know?! While you lived a life sheltered by a machine god, I suffered alone in the wastes! You want to know what¡¯s coming? Take a good look at the bone beast, and then at yourself. How it has escaped you that the bones grow and never stop, I will never know.¡± She pointed at the dead¡­ not quite animal. ¡°But there¡¯s your future!¡± Oh shit. The little hints came together. Once broken plate on my stomach had healed, leaving the seams slightly thicker than the rest. My hand brushed a broken horn, snapped at the curve by the robot guardian, wherefrom a small but palpable point emerged in the middle. Suddenly every dull white aberration on my body demanded attention. Had this protrusion grown bigger? Was this plate wider? My shoulders flexed, joints explored their range of motion. A little stiffer? Or am I imagining things? Flashbacks of my leg being eaten crowded my thoughts. Shit, shit, shit, they¡¯re on the inside too. Even Robeep looked up from his self-absorption. His screen eyes seemed to round a little, softening his gaze. Ruza recognized my panic and calmed, apologizing. ¡°I went too far, I¡¯m sorr-¡± Her words disarmed any lingering anger, because now I understood exactly how she must feel, what doom in the distance meant. As always this world knew no mercy and the next problem piled unto the last. She had been interrupted by shrieking, not too far off. Yet her reaction surprised me, spitting in contempt and lowering her shoulders as if resigned. ¡°Here they come,¡± she sighed, ¡°stay calm and leave the¡­ talking¡­ to me. Robeep, no violence, not even a threat, and definitely no speaking, whatever you do!¡± His nod signaled that he understood. Following his lead, I did the same. My heart beat faster as the screams drew closer and closer, until figures started bursting through the growth. Some were Admorak like me, others Nightlanders like Ruza. There were humans, swarm folk and other half-clothed peoples I failed to recognize. All shouted incoherently at the top of their lungs, wildly waving clubs, rusted iron and dead branches. I nearly fell on my ass, startled when Ruza replied in kind, letting out a shrill cry that threatened to pierce my eardrums. It undulated, lowering and rising in pitch, going on until her air emptied out. They lowered their weapons and slowed, silent. She took in another deep breath, and then burst out a single, sharp high note. The biggest among them answered with a drawn out rumble and they all cheered. What the hell?