“How old are you?” Mary asked.
“Twenty-two.”
“Your birthday?”
“May thirteenth. But what do you care?” It was my turn to be surprised, and the girl’s head dropped still further.
“To recognize you… To remember you… To bring you back…”
“What?!” I yelled right as something flashed past my eyes. My neck burned, and Mary’s terrified face gave way to an unpleasant picture I’d already seen once.
You were killed.
Wait for the game to end.
Chapter 21
Returning to the game in 3… 2… 1…
Go through the personification rules.
GETTING BACK to my normal state followed the exact same process I’d gone through the first time. There was a flash, and the darkness started to take shape. I immediately recognized Four’s players even without having seen them before — they were robots, the usual. Not far away from them, the girl was sobbing as she did her horrible job. The ceiling hung low. Grust was lying nearby. My body still hadn’t taken form, though I immediately figured out that I was in a standard dungeon. The long descent leading away from the dungeon entrance leveled out right where we were standing, the stony labyrinth in front of us. That was where the monsters and, odd as it might seem, my hope for survival were. Without waiting for my body to fully form, I dashed forward through the crowd of players. They tried to stop me, but what could they do with a ghost? And that’s exactly what I was. I had just five or six seconds to use as best as I could. With the wall coming up, I headed into it. Better die like this than on the altar of someone else’s greed with my own knife in my chest.
“Stop him!” I heard Four yell, after which the walls accepted my body. After a moment of darkness, the stone disappeared — I was in the next tunnel over. But I didn’t stop there, leaping forward and diving into the next wall. And the next. The going got harder with the fourth wall, almost like swimming through a thick liquid. But I forced my way through. The walls weren’t that thick, so I figured I’d be fine. Or maybe, I’ll just live here as part of the maze.
Ultimately, I made it. Toppling into the corridor, I crashed down onto the stone only to feel pain shoot through my leg just below the knee. I jerked it as hard as I could and yelled even louder — my body had fully formed, and part of it remained trapped in the stone wall. Wrenching it once more freed me, though I wasn’t thrilled with the result. Part of my leg had been left behind. But there wasn’t time to mourn my loss. Jaws snapped shut, and a hellish pain exploded in my shoulder. A dog-like creature, one of the locals, was only too happy to chomp down on the soft flesh of the victim that had appeared next to it. At least, the thing thought I was its victim. Rearing back with my other arm, I buried my fist in the monster’s skull. We both belonged to the game, after all, only my strikes came with much more force.
A tremor ran through my body. Emotions swept over me, and I think I even began to cry. The agony of defeat was so poignant that I didn’t want anything in that moment. All I could think about was dying, returning to the darkness so completely that nobody would be able to bring me back. Villian had taken away any shot I had at survival by grabbing my named items. Okay, so maybe there’s a tiny chance, but it’s still basically no shot. Finding a naked player in the dungeon wasn’t that big of a challenge even if his attributes hadn’t reset. Actually, wait — they didn’t, did they? Holding my hand up toward the ceiling, I felt my phone begin to materialize in it. As soon as it started working, I pulled up my status table. Yep, everything’s right there. It was the same as with Grust the second time, and that made me feel better. A little. Following that thought, I realized I needed to goad Four into making a move. It made sense why they’d killed me — while I was gone, the location didn’t have an owner, and they could get into it without a problem. But with me back, I was in charge once again. And that meant I had my additional administrative functionality. Digging around to find the button, I changed the settings to make sure no aliens were permitted in the location. You bastards have twelve hours to figure that problem out. My leg itched — my phone told me it would be back to normal in half an hour. The local monsters howled in the corridors as they sensed prey coming closer. The aliens had moved in to clear the maze.
Yet again, I felt apathy taking over. All I wanted to do was lie down and relax, forget everything and everyone, though I pushed that thought away. Getting up with an effort, I crawled over to the wall. As long as I had a shot at surviving, I was going to take it. There will be time enough to throw my hands up when they have me cornered. But in the meantime… It was time for the last ace I’d kept up my sleeve.
Deraven Raknul’s protection gave in with the first try. The dungeon’s rules didn’t apply to items that had been captured outside it, and my breathing quickened when I pulled up the wallet. There were seven million coins in it. Seven damn million! The virtual storage wasn’t empty, either — it contained an entire BRO-V suit, helmet included. It was used, of course, but that was fine. I wasn’t going to have to buy a new one. And the finishing touch was that I was able to sell items again. Sure, it was with a 30% commission, but it was worth it. Deraven, I love you, buddy! If it had been nearby, I would have kissed its green mouth in a second. Only then would I have gunned it down.
The outfit adapted automatically to fit me as soon as I crawled into it. Spending a million right off the bat, I bought myself ten mines. They made me feel better. Then, thinking a bit, I also bought a level six vibroknife. Vibroknives had already proven their value, and I anticipated that my newest purchase would do the same. It was expensive, leaving me with just 1.6 million, but the apathy was swept away as soon as I felt the hilt in my hand. Four didn’t have any of the Tsarter beasts in its squad. I’d cleaned out Five’s fighters recently, and they hadn’t had any named items, so I figured the same would hold true then. I was up against thirty-seven players wearing level six armor. Let’s do this.
I only needed to survive twelve hours, after all…
1 player entered the dungeon, synchronization complete.
“Four, what the hell are you doing?” Villian’s annoyed exclamation rang through the corridors. Damn it. Having that thing around made my life much more difficult.
“The general agreed to have us beat the dungeon without your help. You need to leave.” Four’s response was barely audible.
“You killed Mark!” It didn’t take any effort to hear Villian, on the other hand.
“We were able to enter the location with the team that was originally planned for. Mark was respawned as noa, which makes it easier to keep an eye on him.”
“Oh, really? So, where is he? Where is he?! Do you not even know that he already was personified noa, you useless chunk of metal? I don’t care what you do with him, but the general promised me this location. There were four levels there, damn it! And now what? Why did you restart the monsters?”
“Don’t make me slap a penalty on you, Villian Po. You need to leave the dungeon — I’m giving you one minute.”
“Okay, okay, I won’t get in the way.” The mercenary apparently calmed down, as it got harder to hear him, too. “If you don’t mind, could I stay by the entrance? I’ll make sure nobody gets in, though I won’t do anything, won’t give any advice. After all, I was guaranteed that I’d be part of the search for the pearl.”
“By the entrance, all right, but don’t cross this line.” I could just picture Four drawing a line on the stone ground with one arm. “Move out! Find Mark and get him to the central cave. If you make that happen, you get a reward. Gas him out!”
The acoustics in the dungeon were surprisingly good. Not only could I hear their conversations; there was also a hiss, a girl’s scream, and the sound of a body collapsing to the ground. Four was acting decisively. Since I supposedly didn’t have any game items, the sleeping gas was going to be enough. It was a good move. The only problem was that the premise was completely off.
I sensed the player befo
re I saw it. Device control offered to connect me, and I wasn’t about to turn down the opportunity. Because nobody thought I had anything with me, hacking was the only attack I had in my arsenal. And sure, I knew it was pointless in the dungeon, but I had to cheer my opponent up. Nobody concentrates when they think they’re in for an easy win.
You’re trying to hack the defenses of player NRP7-443R.
Sum total of your skill levels: 120 (device control: 30 (150), hacking: 30 (150), perception: 30 (150), anatomy master: 30 (150)).
Sum total of NRP7-443R’s skill protection: 120 (hacking protection: 30 (restricted), resistance: 30 (restricted), resilience: 30 (restricted), willpower: 30 (restricted)).
Probability of successful hack: 0% (1 — 120/120).
The information that popped up was so unusual that I very nearly missed my chance to attack. Instead of the level fifteen you got with regular dungeons, we were up to level thirty. How? And why? I’d been in lots of different game locations, and that was the first time it was anything but level fifteen. And there… Does the dungeon level you start with really have that big of an impact? If it really boosted everything by five or six points… My breath caught in my throat when I realized what that meant.
But that was a thought for later. First, I had to deal with the opponent in front of me.
The robot flew into my tunnel, lights blinking and a green smoke pouring out of it. That must be the gas. From the outside, Four’s underlings looked humanoid — they had a body, a head, and appendages. Of course, there were too many of the latter, eight to be specific, and that ruined the picture. The way it was flying around on a platform also made it look like self-respecting robots never used their limbs unless they absolutely have to.
Waiting for the player to fly slowly over to where I was lying in ambush, I leaped. My vibroknife flashed before I even landed, opening a gash in the robot’s neck that knocked the “head” right off the body. My melee weapons skill worked just as well as pistol shooting. I could see exactly where I needed to strike to do as much damage as possible, not to mention make sure the target couldn’t warn everyone else. Unlike humanoids, where the head does just about everything, the robots had heads that really just streamed video back to the boss. It didn’t have a processor or anything else important like that. But in my case, I needed to knock off the cameras that served as eyes — Four could sit there and wonder how I’d taken out its fighter.
A swing of my fist sent the severed head flying into the nearest cave. Piercing the thick back armor with my vibroknife and thrusting a hand inside, I yanked out the central processor. It took just a second, and I was left with a motionless corpse frozen in the middle of the tunnel. Immediately, I disintegrated the player’s heart — the game told me it didn’t care about or want to buy processors. Anyway, I care more about the result. One down.
It was always going to be impossible to hack into a phone I’d picked up inside a dungeon. The game logic was inexorable, and as soon as I tried and saw the 0% probability, I sent the phone into virtual space. Save it for a rainy day. The loot was even worse, as the robot just didn’t want to give me anything. All I could do was dispel the body to cover my tracks.
And that was how I got my two million. As soon as the body went off to nowhere, the orphaned platform named me its new master, telling me it was ready and willing to obey my every command. And with nothing in its storages, all I could do was sell it. There was no point taking it outside to fly around on. Its maximum altitude was just three meters, and that didn’t cut it.
“One down,” I heard Villian call. “Not hinting at anything, Four. Just stating a fact.”
“State them to yourself,” came the answer from the depths of the dungeon. “That was an accident. Everyone work in pairs!”
The cloud of green gas grew thicker. My BRO-V offered a hermetic seal that lasted just forty minutes, so I knew I couldn’t hang back and bide my time. Sooner or later, I was going to have to open my helmet and breathe in the poison. And that dictated my strategy. Hiding deep in the dungeon to stab robots with my vibroknife wasn’t an option — I’d get put to sleep before I could take them all out. So, I had to clear the air. And the only way to do that was by cutting down the number of sources polluting it.
My device control alerted me to new targets. Two players were moving through the next tunnel over, a flamethrower clearing the space in front of them. And even though that was the first time I was seeing one of those in the game, I had little doubt my armor would be powerless against it. Neither hiding against a wall nor dashing in with my knife at the ready was going to work. My resilience certainly wasn’t going to save me, and so that just left a demolitions infiltrator’s favorite move.
Run!
“He’s here!” yelled one of the players when they saw me dash off. “He headed…”
I never found out where I was headed, as my favorite move was more than sprinting off through an obstacle course. It also included another important element: three thermal mines tied together. I wasn’t the only one afraid of fire, as the robots also tended to have a hard time with it. That was especially true when enormous boulders came crashing down on their melting armor. The pair quickly met their end — my perception stopped recognizing them as players and told me they were just two piles of metal. Without waiting for the area to cool off, I dashed back to grab the phones and platforms. But the problem there was that the phones couldn’t be hacked, and the platforms were reduced to spare parts netting me a measly hundred thousand coins. I’d seen better loot.
“No explosions!” the main robot yelled, though Villian had already figured out who was responsible for them.
“Two more down! Four, you really let your slaves go. They’re allowed to have money on them? Don’t you think you’re just playing right into Mark’s hands? These children are useless against him, and every death makes him richer and stronger. How much money did they have? A million? Two? How many more have to die for you to realize that you need me?”
“Players can’t be hacked inside dungeons,” the general’s spawn shot back.
“What makes you think that? Do you often find yourself clearing dungeons starting at level two?”
A silence fell that I didn’t like in the least. Dropping the two phones into my storage, I kept going. The exit is over there somewhere. I wonder what Villian would do about a bundle of explosives.
But I wasn’t able to get to him. Four admitted defeat.
“The general approved your involvement,” its metallic voice said, the unwillingness dripping from it. “You’ll get your reward. What do you suggest?”
“First of all, get everyone back here. What, are you burning something? Where’d everybody run off to? And also, stop yelling so loud the whole dungeon can hear you. Come here, and I’ll tell you how we’re going to smoke him out.”
Robots began rushing by, and I quickly retreated deeper into the tunnels. Without Zelda and the invisibility it provided, I was too weak to get into a pitched battle with a whole detachment of them.
A couple minutes later, the poisonous fog had grown even thicker. It was impossible to see anything beyond my fingertips, the worst part being that I had just fifteen minutes left before my hermetic seal ran out. My oxygen was going to run out with it — there wasn’t anything like a spare tank of air in the store. All I could have done was buy a whole new outfit. But how would I have gotten it on? The BRO suits didn’t have ventilation systems, and Ulbaron wasn’t anywhere nearby.
That just left one thing to do: hide in some deep hole and hope my regeneration would be enough to handle the poison until it ran out and before I was found. I’d even started to look for just such a spot, stepping around sleeping monsters as I went, when I sensed that something was off. My vibroknife flashed in my hand as I pressed my back against a wall. There was no telling what had me on high alert. Device control didn’t show me anything dangerous, though there were still tingles of fear racing up and down my body.
It got to th
e point where I started just making swipes at the air with my knife. Shadows seemed to appear, though they were a physical impossibility. Still, someone was definitely in the fog, and I found out who a couple seconds later. My body stiffened instantly when a needle was plunged into my shoulder. From up above me, hanging by the ceiling, Villian’s happy mug appeared. The mercenary was completely naked and clutching the rocks with long, black claws. And a tail. As it turned out, its race sported a long, flexible tail very much unlike regular lizards. Actually, it was more like what a monkey might have. But what shocked me more than anything was that the green-skinned beast had no problem breathing in the poisonous gas.
“A level six vibroknife and a BRO-V suit? Not bad, Mark, not bad. You continue to surprise me. Just a little training, and you’ll be unstoppable. But don’t worry, we’ll take care of that in the next release — I’ll get you up to speed myself. For now, sleep.”
I felt another needle, and darkness swept over me. When my consciousness returned, I realized I was once again naked. My armor was next to me, having been cut off. Four, it seemed, had gone with the tried and true, having been unable to hack me — if you can’t make something work, just break it. Although, no, I wasn’t completely naked. My right arm was broken and held in a medical brace. As I tried to reach out, I found that I had no control. It belonged to Four.
Pearl of the South (World of the Changed Book #2): LitRPG Series Page 28