Speaking of Four, it was hovering nearby. It was the first time I’d gotten to see that particular iteration of the general’s spawn, and I didn’t like the view. That one definitely didn’t look like an old iron. Just like its underlings, the robot was more or less humanoid, just with extra appendages. The two-meter monster was sitting on a flying platform as it demonstrated its distaste for the world around it.
I coughed, and my head spun. The sleeping gas formed a thick shroud that made it impossible to think. Even as I fought the urge to sleep, my head drooped, and I drifted off.
“We neutralized the gas,” I heard someone report through the waves of oblivion. Pulling my eyelids open with an effort, I looked around at the bare walls of the main cave. The aliens were following the digger’s instructions to the letter — even before polishing off the first round, they’d headed over to the center of the dungeon to complete the bloody ritual.
Grust was lying naked on the rocks in front of me. He was conscious, but only capable of moving his eyes. Probably drugged the same way I was. And judging by the incredibly expressive look on his face, he wasn’t exactly happy to see me.
“There are two ways we can do this, Mark Derwin,” Four said, turning the part one might have called its face toward me. “Either you help and don’t suffer, or you don’t help and do suffer. But either way, we’re going to get what we want.”
“What exactly do you want?” I asked. It was hard to talk, almost like there was sandpaper in my throat.
“Take this.” One of the robot’s appendages disappeared into the bowels of its platform, returning with Fang. But it was in no hurry to hand it over to the servants who ran up. “Your heartbeat quickened. You think this knife could save you. Villian?”
“It’s just a ritual dagger.” The green-skinned creature was standing behind the robot, having gotten back into its armor. “All I can think is that Mark is happy to see his blade. He’s human, he hasn’t gone through training yet, and so it’s no surprise to see how hard it is for him to control his emotions. That’s just happiness, not hope. But just in case, have your underlings surround him and hold onto his arms and legs. We don’t want surprises, do we?”
“There’s a feeling I can appreciate. Anger. Fear. You’re right, Villian Po — Mark is just happy to see his toy. Pin him down!”
Finally, the servants were permitted to take the knife. You bitches! Think you know us humans so well, do you? You see how we feel as well as what’s happening on the outside? My body twisted as they picked me up by my arms, and I howled in pain. The idiot robots following Four’s orders had grabbed my legs and pulled them in different directions, leaving me doing a perfect split. None of them seemed to care that they were about to rip right through my muscles and tendons. There was one robot for each leg, another at my torso, one for my head, and another one each for my arms. I was pinned in so tightly that I couldn’t breathe normally, not to mention moving. And as my hand was wedged open against my will by the medical brace, I felt Fang placed in it. My fist closed around the hilt. Finally, I was ready for the first sacrifice.
“I’ll ask you again. Either you help, follow our orders, and don’t suffer, or we’ll break every bone in your body, stick you in a suit, and go through with this for you. The second option isn’t great — I’m not sure if it will work. But what I do know is that it will hurt.”
I heard Four, but I wasn’t listening to it. My thoughts were elsewhere. By giving me Fang, the aliens had made a grave blunder, but I couldn’t let Grust be sacrificed, too. It suddenly struck me what we could do. Our device control skills had been high enough for us to chat without phones. Locking eyes with him, I sent him an invitation to a group.
Grust Kilvan declined your group invitation: Let’s take out the bastards! Can you move?
***
You declined Grust Kilvan’s group invitation: No, I’m pinned. How are you going to get free? There are ten of them!
***
Grust Kilvan joined your group: I’ll be fine! You just have to be in the group, or else you’ll die. On the count of three!
“I’m waiting,” Four said. His underlings began stretching me even farther. My joints popped, but instead of yelling in pain, I began speaking quietly.
“One.”
I coughed after that, of course, but the strain was eased.
“One what?” the robot asked.
“Two,” I whispered.
“What are you mumbling?” Four flew closer. “I can’t understand you. Speak up.”
Villian took a few steps backward as if sensing that something was amiss. His head turned, trying to catch who was helping me, but not realizing that my helper was already in my hand. It was a problem that he was that far away — I wasn’t sure I was going to reach him.
“Three!” I called loudly, exactly the way the general’s spawn had asked me to. My hand was pinned, the fingers clutched around Fang immobile, but that was fine. I’d picked up a fun new toy just recently. And it was time to give it a try.
Activate mass sacrifice!
Dark tentacles reached out of Fang’s snow-white blade to cling to every robot within a radius of 2.2 meters. None of them had time to move, though my head practically exploded from the stream of messages my phone was feeding me.
You’re personified noa.
You sacrificed nine players that aren’t personified noa inside a dungeon, giving them a penalty for 3 releases.
The conditions were met to boost the dungeon’s level.
The dungeon level can be increased by 9.
Would you like to refresh the location?
My head was splitting, so screamed relentlessly as I mentally smashed the button.
“Yes, refresh it!”
Letio Durvale refreshed. Current level: 11.
Note! The conditions were met for the rainbow pearl to appear in the dungeon. Destroy the boss to collect your prize.
The arms holding me weakened, and I collapsed to the floor. Let’s do this!
Chapter 22
THE PAIN IN MY HEAD was gone, and I only then realized that I was more or less free. Still trying to wrap my mind around what had happened, I dashed over to Grust and ducked down a tunnel with him. We were just in time. The spot where my partner had been lying exploded into a million pieces — one of the players had taken their shot. Happily, they’d missed.
The air in front of me congealed, turning into a very real space marine. The game’s procreation was holding a ray gun, a tactical suit of armor covering it from head to toe. I’d never seen such well-prepared monsters in a dungeon. But there was no time to wonder if it was on my side or not — as soon as the blaster began to turn toward me, I threw my arm forward, burying Fang in the creature’s chest. There was no resistance. Level eleven armor was never going to stand up to a level 22 weapon. The monster’s body began to deflate, a few moments later collapsing to the ground in a pile of flexible armor. The blaster clattered off the stone, too, but it disintegrated into fine dust as soon as I touched it.
“Pull back! Get Four out of here — I’ll cover you!” Villian yelled, and the silence was broken by the rattle of gunfire. Blue and red flashes zipped by, and a couple grenades detonated to bathe Grust and me in fire, but we survived. I wasn’t about to look around and see what was going on. The mercenary leader was still alive, and that meant I was just one shot away from the darkness.
Covering Grust with my body, I did my best to blend in with the stone. It didn’t work well, as camouflage was hard to pull off when the only thing I was wearing was the splint. On the other hand… Wait a second, I’m still wearing the splint! I quickly tore it off.
The sound of gunfire moved out of the main cave, and that let me finally pick my head up. There were plenty of space marines to deal with. I counted seven, the rest having headed off after the mercenary and the robots still left alive after the dungeon had been boosted. Incidentally, it wasn’t just Fang that had taken a toll. Two robots were lying dead on the ground ridd
led full of holes. The locals were doing their part, too.
Grust still hadn’t livened up — he was lying motionless on the ground. Only his eyes told me he was still with me. Crawling off him slowly, making no more than one move every second, I made my way over to the robots I’d sacrificed. If the sloths had had a king, he would have stepped down off his thrown and handed me his crown. That’s how deliberately I was going. I froze frequently, often in very uncomfortable positions. The space marines glanced around, not noticing me, and I continued forward.
Suddenly, all seven remaining monsters picked up their blasters and ran out of the cave. A moment later, I found out why when my phone buzzed softly. A message popped up in my brain:
16 players entered the dungeon, synchronization complete.
Yep, the rest of Villian’s troops and their guests. I knew things were about to get toasty. The monsters were going to have a hard time breaking through their defenses, and I used that time to jump up, no longer hiding, and place a palm on each of the bodies. The dungeon’s level 11 untied my hands — pulling everything off the phones and bodies was easy enough.
You’re trying to hack the defenses of player LON8-833T.
Probability of successful hack: 65%.
Attempt 1… Successful.
Just as Villian had assumed, the players were anything but cash-poor and poorly equipped. On average, each of the nine robots gave me nine million. Four’s troops were much better off than the old Five’s had been.
Heading back over to Grust, I stuck a regeneration syringe in him. Our opponents had presumably frozen his internal restoration processes, so they needed a hand. I turned out to be correct. A moment later, Grust took a deep breath and sat up. His gaze found its way to me. But instead of a greeting, he started in on me right away.
“What took so long? Where have you been? I was already starting to fear the worst!”
There was a pause. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how to react. I was already taking a breath to tell him what he could do with himself when I saw the smile spread across his face. Jumping to his feet, he ran over and hugged me tightly.
“It’s great to see you!”
Given the fact that we were both naked, the situation was a bit uncomfortable, and I coughed delicately with a nod down below. Grust followed my eyes and stepped back quickly. It even looked like he blushed.
“Let’s go. They’re going to wrap up with the first round soon, and the bots will respawn. We can’t be out in the open like this.”
“We’re just going to run around in our birthday suits?”
“First, we hide. That’s more important.”
I didn’t forget about the two robots the bots had taken out with their blasters, either. They weren’t as well endowed, though I still came away with 14 million in total. That was solid enough. We needed to be ready for level 13 bots — they were going to be a challenge.
We had to leave the cave and follow on the heels of the battle. Things were hot — dead bots littered the tunnel, and there were even melted chunks of robot. Unfortunately, they’d already been stripped by their compatriots, so I wasn’t able to get anything from them. Finding a cave that wasn’t big enough for bots to spawn in, I dragged Grust inside and shoved him into a far corner. He tried to protest, but I shushed him. Finally, he’d started listening to me. Villian picked that moment to show what hot stuff it and its fighters were.
You destroyed the first round of monsters.
The dungeon has been updated, monster levels bumped up twice (current: 13).
But I’d been wrong. The space in the cave started to shimmer, turning into a bot. Surprisingly, it was again dressed in space armor, just that time more sophisticated. It was taller, its weapon scarier. Grust only stared wordlessly at the force of nature. As soon as its body stopped shimmering, I took a step forward.
It was definitely different from its predecessors, if only in that it had two hearts, neither of which offered a guaranteed kill if you took it out. They were completely interchangeable. Its head wasn’t vital, either. Just like with the robots, it was for show. The bot could definitely tell there was someone in its cave, but just when it started to turn, Fang slipped easily into its body. The charge of necrotic energy dropped the dried remains to the floor. Two meters of space marine had turned into a pile of trash barely taller than the rocks around it. One kick later, and even that disintegrated.
“What level named items do you have?” I asked my partner. To my surprise, he was already holding Swallow and Ulbaron. Did the aliens really make the mistake of not checking his phone?
The question was apparently written all over my face, so Grust explained.
“I broke my phone as soon as they took me captive. It just prints out of midair, so I figured they’d be able to hack it and made sure they didn’t have the chance. And, you know, right about now that’s looking like it was an awfully good move! For the levels, I’m at seventeen. I meet the requirements, too. Why aren’t you getting dressed?”
“Oh, right,” I replied in confusion, not having been expecting that gift of fate. It gave us a solid shot at the bots. I didn’t tell him what level I was at, however. He’d gotten an extra level for the southern location, but the explosions only worked for me. That was presumably why all the Tsarter fighters were at the same level with the exception of Villian. It took care of itself.
A strange noise grabbed my attention, and I held up a hand for Grust to stay quiet. A couple seconds later, a big group of fighters rushed by the cave we were in. If they work together, they might even be able to take out Villian. The shooting and explosions didn’t die out for a second, telling me that the dungeon’s creatures were doing their best to make that happen.
Okay, time for some shopping. Opening the store, I found Ulbaron, which cost only 35 million for some reason; tapped the button to purchase it; and…
I cursed loudly when I read the message:
You can’t buy duplicate named items.
As long as your Ulbaron is still in the game, duplicates are unavailable.
“What’s up?” Grust asked.
“I’m going to kill you,” I growled angrily, realizing that Villian had probably known about named items and took care not to destroy them just so he could manipulate me. Did that green-faced bastard really think I’d get away?
“What did I do?” Grust asked in surprise. I had to explain the situation, my verbiage making it clear exactly how I felt about the situation. When I finished describing the green-skinned fiend, my partner shared my opinion. We needed to kill the bastard.
“Okay, so what? Are you going to buy regular armor?”
“No point. It would be like wearing newspaper as far as the dungeon monsters are concerned, so no, we need to go with something nobody will expect.”
“What will nobody expect?”
“If only I knew…”
“Mark, could you at least start by buying yourself some underwear? Somebody’s going to chop off your bits accidentally.”
He wasn’t wrong. The store offered regular clothes, too, so a few clicks later, I was pulling some on. They didn’t offer any protection, but the cloth felt good on my skin. Of course, they were game clothes, so someone with high enough hacking could…
A thought flashed through my mind, and I even peeked out into the tunnel despite Grust’s warning cry. Nobody. The monsters had all run off to fight the other players, leaving our area unguarded.
“Follow me,” I said, moving out into the main cave. There wasn’t anybody there, either. Grust stayed right behind me, Swallow darting back and forth as though covering me. I went right over to the very center. Knowing that the second wave could wrap up any minute, I began digging into the ground with Fang. Grust was surprised, and he peered silently over my shoulder in an attempt to figure out what I had up my sleeve.
I didn’t need very deep holes. Just a few slashes with my dagger were enough to carve out a hollow big enough for three mines and a remote control. I wasn’t sure
where the boss would show up, so I made sure I had everything covered. Thirty hollows, three mines in each. I dropped nine million right there.
“Let’s go,” I said as I wrapped up and headed back into cover.
“What was that?” Grust couldn’t suppress his curiosity any longer. “What do you need mines in that cave for?”
“You’ll see. Now, we wait — I sure hope I’m correct. Just make sure you don’t shoot right away.”
You destroyed the second round of monsters.
The dungeon has been updated, monster levels bumped up twice (current: 15).
Pearl of the South (World of the Changed Book #2): LitRPG Series Page 29