Class-A Threat (Disgardium Book #1) LitRPG Series

by Dan Sugralinov

  Local boss

  Softly stepping on the damp loose soil and noisily pulling in air, the wolf headed in my direction.

  But to heck with him! Exit!

  Chapter Sixteen. Curse of the Undead

  I SLEPT THROUGH school. My smart alarm clock detected sleep deprivation, did the nice thing and deactivated harsh wake-up mode.

  Based on the recordings I saw when I woke up, father returned home in the morning and he couldn't stay on his feet. His clothing was all dirty as if he had crawled from his flying car to the apartment. Probably that was why mom hadn't slept all night either. That said, when she disappeared all night, dad's worrying meant nothing to her.

  But all that made them forget about me completely. They must have figured their son flew off to school unnoticed even though all that time I was out like a dead man. And as a matter of fact I had died. Five hundred times in fact.

  I woke up after midday feeling absolutely broken and dispirited. AT was kneading her feet on my chest and issuing a measured satisfied purr. He could sense feelings and transform into either a cat or a dog. Though to be fair he was a bit glitched. At some point a firmware update installed wrong and, remaining a cat, he ran around the house and barked in a deep bass like a German shepherd. What a sight that was!

  I mechanically stroked my pet, feeling a calming measured vibration under my hand. I laid like that a few minutes then, pushing the cat off, got up.

  There was no sense in flying to school but, to clear my conscience, I listened to the condensed version of the lectures I missed while I went about my morning routine. I washed up, did a couple exercises and had breakfast. Again those repellent cereal flakes with synthetic milk. My parents were on the warpath again, so they didn't have the energy to refill the nutrient cartridges in the kitchen. I ate, shoveling down two portions so I could spend more time immersed.

  My parents were already fast asleep by then, recovering from their wild night. Mom was in the parents' bedroom and dad was in his clothes and half on the couch. He didn't have the energy to get up any better, and his feet were just sitting on the floor.

  After that, I spent a long time warming up under a hot shower not wanting to crawl out into either the clammy real world of my unheated apartment or the twilight of Gloomwood in Dis. In fact, I didn't want anything at all. Both life and the future felt like impenetrable darkness, and only force of will could get me into my pod to launch the game.

  I appeared in the world mentally prepared for instant death in Crusher’s teeth. But nothing happened, the local boss had left and it was all clear.

  The washed-out clay riverbank where I'd left my character was slippery under my bare feet, and I had to get on all fours to reach dry land. Water was burbling behind me, teeming with an overabundance of Stone Grabbers. The little fish started jumping onto the land, trying to get a bite of a foot, then nervously flipped back down and rolled into the water. And finally I was able to catch a glimpse of the things: the ugly little fish were the size of a hand and had a snake's neck with a huge set of jaws and protruding fangs. I stomped a few vengefully, smearing their guts over the black sticky clay. No experience, no loot. Just useless animals.

  But then I had to cut and run. From a nearby eddy, a group of level-eight Magnetic Toads jumped over to see what all the commotion was about. The plump amphibians emanated a weak aura of submission. The Stone Grabbers calmed down in an instant, shoaled up and swam over to the shore so they could jump out of the water all at once.

  The magnetism of the toads almost worked on me too. I got a minute-long debuff that significantly lowered movement speed but, much to my delight, the little fish were closer to the toads. While they slurped down the Grabbers, I hauled ass.

  It took me a minute to get sixty-five feet away and out of the aggro radius of the overgrown toads. Flaying my elbows, I crawled on the desolate earth through a dried-out bush. A bit further away I found a small but fairly deep flood gully and tried to hide. But I ended up stirring up the blood-red cockroaches that lived there. Thankfully they didn't attack me, instead ducking into their burrows.

  Last night I had a clear plan of action but today... A wave of hopeless despair rolled over me. I felt it was all in vain. My parents would divorce, I would fail my citizenship test, move to Cali Bottom and never find success in Dis. It was too hard to level without using real money, and it would only get harder. I mean, I was just level two!

  Thoughts were turning over and over in my head. The forest was imposing with its mere presence.

  To my side, a level-eleven Acrid Wraith hovered past. Every crack in his joints seethed with green and black smoke. I pushed myself down into the tree trunk, not exactly thrilled at the idea of jumping right into another series of deaths. Most likely it would be a big waste of time. I probably couldn't even do one point of damage.

  So I sat like that for more than an hour while the Wraith periodically popped up in my zone of visibility. By then I managed to gather my thoughts and stop feeling sorry for myself. I had already nearly decided to start fighting to level skills when I suddenly got a new one:

  Stealth skill discovered!

  Chance of remaining unnoticed by enemies increased by 1%.

  Current level: 1.

  Improve this skill by hiding near enemies of your level or higher!

  You have received experience points for discovering a new skill: 10.

  Experience points at present level (2): 350/900.

  Well, well. That was new! One more bar appeared over every mob, showing my Stealth level. The Wraith groaned and stopped short. The bar started filling in red. I fell to the earth. My visibility level froze in shaky balance. The Wraith spent some time boring its black eye sockets into the spot where I was hidden, then silently hovered in my direction.

  The not-fully-decayed corpse was wearing scraps of browned cloth. It floated over the earth, enshrouded in wisps of dissipating black smoke. A hood covered its face if it even had one. Its feet were nowhere to be seen, as if dissolved in air, just absent in this reality.

  Then my Stealth bar disappeared and I suddenly saw a notification:

  Stealth check failed! You have been detected by Acrid Wraith!

  There was nowhere to run. I was in Gloomwood. And why the hell try? This was why I came in here! Standing sharply, I interlocked my fingers and stretched upward, shaking the indecision from my muscles. The wraith came closer.

  A Hammerfist swung through the air, making contact with the otherworldly abomination...

  I missed, as I did the next few times. Its level was just too much higher than mine.

  Then I died. With yet another swing of its extended bony fingers, the wraith pierced my chest. It looked like the mob clenched my heart in its fist, dealing me a huge amount of critical damage.

  The never-ending series of deaths, respawns, attempts to land blows and new deaths was drawing on and on. Unarmed Combat and Resilience went up by one level, while Stoneskin now lasted three seconds. But none of that was really changing anything. I was still dying just as quickly.

  This was probably what it felt like to lose your mind from torture. The only difference was that I could stop this at any moment by just leaving Dis. And that was enough to get me through it. But when it was all over, my pent-up frustration found a way out. I started laughing softly and kept snickering like a madman, lying on the ground as the Acrid Wraith attacked me impotently.

  You carry the mark of the Destroying Plague and have evaded fatal damage!

  You have been given Curse of the Undead: all damage taken reduced by 100%!

  This curse will remain active until you completely restore your health.

  Mark of the Destroying Plague improved: +1.

  Chance to receive Curse of the Undead: 2%

  Current level: 2.

  While I lost my mind, unable to calm down, green and black spots covered my skin. My skin even receded in places, revealing bare flesh. The pain went completely numb, and the mob’s attacks started to fe
el like light brushes. Seemingly, I had lost my sense of touch.

  All the wraith's strikes lost power as soon as they touched my body. Recognizing that, I again just about lost it laughing, but got myself back together. Time was ticking. I picked up the culinary masterpiece that fell after my first death and one it, trying not to think about what it was made of.

  You have eaten Roast Undead Rat Chitterlings.

  Positive effect received: +1000% to skill levelling rate for 1 hour!

  I calmly stood up and laid down a series of blows so fierce that, by minute two, I was withered and had lost tempo. None of them had done even one point of damage, but the games had begun. I now had a high-level training dummy to level my combat skills on. And the only drawback was that I didn’t have a weapon. I had given the bear bone club back to Undy and Vista took my sword. It would be nice to level more than just Unarmed Combat. Still, I had a truckload of Dis time ahead of me.

  Unarmed Combat skill improved: +1.

  Unarmed Combat skill improved: +1.

  Unarmed Combat skill improved: +1.

  Unarmed Combat skill improved: +1.

  After skill level ten, the life of the acrid wraith began to slowly crawl down. First every tenth blow landed, taking one health, then I started hitting more and more often, slamming into its bony body. At that point crits started mixing in with the normal damage too.

  When the Wraith's health was half emptied, I realized I was digging myself into a hole. If this mob died, I would no longer be in combat, so my health would start to regenerate. That would put me back to full health fairly quickly. The curse would go away and I'd have to die another hundred painful deaths in hopes of triggering the Mark. And that realization led me to a decision. I started hitting the wraith less often, and began moving deeper into Gloomwood to gather more hostile mobs.

  And when I was done, I didn't even have to aim. Every swing hit something.

  Unarmed Combat skill improved: +1.

  Damage dealt without a weapon increased by 110%

  Attack accuracy increased by 110%.

  Current level: 21.

  Improve this skill by fighting enemies of your level or higher for additional bonuses and new special attacks.

  Hammerfist improved: +1.

  Cost to use: 2 mana points.

  Deals 1150% of normal damage.

  Ignores 20% of armor.

  Pay a visit to a master of Unarmed Combat to learn more special attacks!

  By evening I had nearly half the mobs in this part of the forest after me. There were huge spiders and black rats, reeking corpses and more wraiths. There was even one rare cursed bear with ribs outside its skin. And all these bumbling mobs were constantly getting in one another's way as they piled on me: biting, chomping, scratching, trying to tear me to pieces, puffing in acid clouds, wrapping me in spider webs and spitting poison. Right after Curse of the Undead activated I stopped feeling pain but, as the damage I took grew, it started to slowly come back. There was no time to think about why, but I quickly came to the conclusion it was some hidden downside to the curse.

  Still, soon I grew so accustomed to the never-ending pain that I stopped feeling anything.

  But then exhaustion started taking over. A few times I just sat down on the ground, piled on by the small herd of monsters and caught my breath. I waited for the exhaustion bar to zero out, then stood up and started methodically mowing down their ranks. My Unarmed Combat had reached level thirty, bringing my accuracy up so high that every attack hit my higher-level targets.

  My mana was back up to two points, so I threw another Hammer, shattering an enemy skull with a satisfying crunch.

  You have critically damaged Reeking Corpse: 84!

  Reeking Corpse is dead.

  Experience points received: 64.

  Experience points at present level (2): 817/900.

  The level-thirteen body collapsed into a pile and I had to take a few steps aside. The bodies of the dead mobs were not disappearing, just piling up to wait for me to take their loot. Experience was gushing like a river, the only thing holding me back was a lack of mana. In battle it regenerated very slowly, and I couldn't use Hammer as often as I might have liked. Normal blows meanwhile, took just two or three health.

  I fought that crowd of mobs until almost midnight. In the fury of battle I felt no hunger, no thirst, but I did start missing more. My exhaustion bar never left the red zone and I had to take frequent breaks. Strange of course that my cursed body was getting tired, but I didn't wrack my brains over it and simply took it as a given.

  You are now level 3!

  5 free attribute points available!

  I hit level three casually, sandwiched between yet another reeking corpse and the rare cursed bear. I was worried that my health would come back and the Curse of the Undead would leave me. But for some reason that didn't happen. My mana came all the way back though. I threw five points into intelligence, nearly doubling my mana reserves, and I started using Hammer more often.

  When only five mobs remained, I got an achievement:

  Achievement unlocked: I’m on Fire – 3!

  Defeat 60 enemies who are more than five times higher level than you.

  This is why people like you get labeled a threat to the world! We're afraid to even imagine what will come next! A bit of friendly advice: you can keep your character info secret with the privacy settings in your profile.

  Reward: +100 health points.

  I didn't put that off either, hiding all the information. Now everyone else could only see my name, current level, and health and mana bars were shown to others only as a percentage scale.

  By the time I had only one mob left, I stopped fighting and went to gather loot. The black rat, its snout shattered and paw broken, started hobbling over to me, trying to bite. I didn't kill it so the curse would stay with me.

  The loot was rich. Enchanted Corpse Ash at five silver a piece took up a whole slot. Another was occupied by Black Spider Webs to sell to tailors, almost one gold per stack. And a third went to the web glands, which were used as an alchemy ingredient. They were worth no less.

  Due to limitations on carrying weight and bag slots, I had to throw out my normal gray and white gear. Unfortunately, I couldn't wear any of it. It required level five at least. Another three slots went to green items: pants, boots and a jacket with bonuses to strength, agility and endurance. The last two were taken up by rare blue items.

  As soon as I saw them, my heart skipped a beat and a hamster crawled out of somewhere deep in my subconscious. With a voice not its own, it screamed, “move your butt into town and get this loot stashed as deep in your chest as possible.” And I was in complete agreement! Both the weapon and boots were incredible:

  Skeleton Club

  Rare

  One-handed bashing weapon.

  Damage: 24-36.

  Durability: 80/80.

  Possible effect on hit: corpse poison, dealing 7-9 damage.

  Requires level: 15.

  Sell price: 29 gold coins.

  Chance of losing after death reduced by 50%.

  Lynx Paws

  Rare

  Leather armor.

  Armor: 5.

  +7 Agility.

  +7 Intelligence.

  +7 Endurance.

  Durability: 100/100.

  Requires level: 10.

  Sell price: 8 gold coins, 94 silver coins.

  Chance of losing after death reduced by 50%.

  I looked around and noticed that the bodies of the dead mobs had disappeared because I had taken their loot. All that was left nearby was the huge black rat. It was latched into my calf muscle and jerking its head, trying to rip off even one bit of flesh. I bopped it on the nose. For a few seconds it shook its head, coming back to its senses after my crit Hammer.

  In the distance, I suddenly heard walking and breaking branches. I looked and saw a group of people tearing through the forest glade. The last thing I needed!

  Sh-sh-shu-u
gh! The space nearby lit up, and a fireball slammed into the rat's side. The fire covered its pelt and the rat squealed in pain. I smelled burning fur.

  "Run, Scyth! Run, you idiot!" Tissa screamed.

  The Dementors had come to pay me and the black rat a visit. Infect and Bomber unsheathed their blades as they ran, and Crawler came behind them, casting another fireball. Tissa took up the rear, enshrouded in the aura of a priestess of Nergal the Radiant.

  I could smell a noxious sweet scent coming off me. Then I remembered the ulcers and festering wounds all over my body...