by Tao Wong
The Alpha, unable to buck me off, spins towards the truck again and launches itself at Richard without warning. Only battle hardened instinct alerts Richard, making him throw himself off at the last second. He’s unable to escape completely and the creature’s fangs clamp down and rip off his foot as he dodges. For a brief moment, Lana’s face flashes before my eyes as I see Richard almost lose his life and that centre of peace that I fight in shatters. Rage comes in its place, the same cold angry focus that I felt when I saw Haines Junction and my world narrows down to one goal and one goal only – ending this thing before it hurts anyone else. As the Alpha attempts to stabilise himself on the truck, I shove my left arm all the way into the wound to my shoulder, grabbing at whatever organ I can find.
The Alpha rears up, howling in surprise and rage as I dig around its abdomen and grasp hold of something slimy but tough. My position fixed, I call my sword to my right hand and begin thrusting it into the abdomen, twisting and repeating the attack again and again. When the creature slams itself into the truck to throw me off, I don’t dismiss the sword but instead throw my weight behind it, letting the creatures own momentum widen the wound.
I don’t know how long it takes, my world taken over by my need to end this creature, to kill it and all its kind. I vaguely recall a tree shattering around us in the eternity of bucking and stabbing. When the Alpha stops moving, collapsing on the ground, I find myself a hundred yards from the original scene of battle in the woods, alone. Hovering over me, Ali is silent and worried. Extracting my arm from its innards is a disgusting, revolting process and once again, I really wish there was a magic dissolving corpse option.
Free of the creature, I drop to my knees and focus, working on rebuilding my self-control. The aftershocks arrive soon after, my entire body shaking and I have to pull my helmet off when I begin to throw up, pain dragging me to my feet as my stomach wound makes itself known. When the smell finally hits me, I begin retching again, stomach clamping around my open wound and making me fall over to my side in pain.
“Boy-o?” Ali whispers worriedly after I finally stop shivering and whimpering in pain long enough to cast a Minor Heal on myself. My body’s System assisted regeneration helps too, patching together my body even as I damage it by throwing up.
“I’m okay. I’m okay,” I close my eyes, the rage driven away by the pain. I work on my self-control, rebuilding my walls as I put the anger aside. “The others?”
“Safe. Injured but safe,” Ali replies and I nod, slowly pushing myself up and hurry over to my companions to provide them with a little bit of healing. Mikito has already bandaged Richard’s leg, the man caring less about his foot then the corpse of his dog. For a moment, I feel regret that I’ve not taken the time to learn their names and resolve to do better as I watch Richard grieve. Richard holds the corpse close, sobbing into it even as the other dogs snuffle around them, letting loose occasional howls of grief. All I can do is cast Minor Healing on both of them, helping to speed up the process.
Ali floats over to me, his usual sardonic smile back on his face as he waggles his fingers to throw up a pair of notifications, “Congrats boy-o. Your first boss kill.”
Congratulations! Wexlix Spider Alpha – Boss Slain
+11,700 XP
Level Up!
You have reached Level 12 as an Erethran Honor Guard. Stat Points automatically distributed. You have 14 Free Attribute Points to distribute.
When I finish reading, I cast another healing on Mikito before turning back to Ali who has continued speaking after I’m done, “That could have been worst. Looks like easy mode is over though if boss monsters are beginning to appear.”
“You mentioned that earlier. Care to clarify?” I ask for clarification. Better not to make assumptions.
“Boss monsters are leaders of a group of monsters, always the strongest son-of-a-bitch. Their presence generally increases the breeding and mutation rates of their followers.” Ali shakes his head. “Good thing you killed it, Wexlix Spiders are nasty predators and could easily have made this entire region a lot harder to deal with. Of course, there are worst things out there.”
I look around the carnage, the dead body of Richard’s pet and our injuries and shiver at his words, looking out into the wilderness. If what he’s saying is true, then out there, there might be more monster hordes breeding and growing unchecked. Monsters that we know nothing about, growing unchecked till the horde comes crashing down on us in an unstoppable wave. Ali sees my reaction and just nods soberly. We’re running out of time.
Chapter 14
I stay silent while we loot the bodies and get Richard back into the truck along with the rest of the animals. I stay silent when, at Ali’s urging, Mikito and I head into the webbed forest and find the eggs, collecting them all for sale. I stay silent through the entire drive back till we drop Richard off with Ali at the Shop.
Once Richard disappears, I turn to Mikito and snarl, “What the hell were you thinking!” She looks right back at me impassively and I continue, raising a finger. “I said run. That was a fucking plasma grenade. If you had been any closer, you’d have died. Hell, it’s pure luck you didn’t die. Richard stayed back because you fucking didn’t run and he nearly died for it. I nearly died.”
She looks to the side, not meeting my gaze and I growl, raising a finger. “Don’t ever fucking do that again. If I say run, run. Hell, if Richard says run, you run. If you don’t listen to us when we fight, you’ll get one of us killed.”
Mikito looks up for a moment, meeting my eyes briefly before looking down again, her hand clutching the naginata tightly. She jerks her head slightly at my words and then without saying a word further walks to the crystal and touches it, disappearing into the Shop. I snarl, shivering with rage at that crazy woman. Fuck!
A small part of me knows that it’s not just her that I’m angry at. I’m angry at me, for agreeing to it and I’m angry at the System. I thought I had begun to get a hang of it, thought I had an idea of what to expect. But each time, things just keep getting worst and worst - more monsters, higher level monsters, Boss monsters. Monster hordes next.
“Adventurer Lee is it not?” the voice is urbane and cultured and sends a shiver down my spine. I turn and spot Roxley and once again, I am struck by just how pretty he is. Delicate features that still hint at the strength of his body, a commanding aura that attracts attention. I blink when I realise I’ve probably been staring longer than I should have.
“Yes, sir,” I reply immediately and then pause, considering what to call him. Lord just seems pretentious but it is what he is.
“And where is your Companion?” Roxley looks around, smiling slightly as he speaks.
“… with a friend. They’re selling our loot,” I say and then I realise something. “Oh, I have some things you might want to know.”
“Do tell,” Roxley says.
“Yeah,” I pause, trying to decide if should hold out for some reward. However, after a moment I decide against it. He’s been pretty generous so far and goodwill can often be better currency than actual currency. Old friends are important. “Well, firstly, did you know that there’s a fort at Carcross Cutoff? I kinda own it now, but yeah, there’s one there. Also, there are boss monsters now.”
“Really. A fort?” Roxley smiles slightly, looking at me as I stare at him. “Well, you have been fast at picking up property have you not.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I reply and shrug, my lips twisting into a slight smile.
“Well, I’m sure there’s a story there but I was just about to go for lunch,” Roxley says and nods to me. “Adventurer Lee.”
“Lord Roxley,” I reply automatically, trying to get my brain back into gear. Switching from anger to fear to lust in a short span of time seems to have short-circuited it. Or maybe that’s just my consciousness.
As he walks to the doors, he stops and then smiles slightly, “Perhaps you’d care to join me while you wait for your friends? You can tell me more about the fo
rt and these boss monsters then.”
“Ummm…” I reply and then realise my stomach is growling, letting me know that running around fighting and killing and healing does require a large number of calories. “Sure.”
Lunch itself is amazing. I stare at the plates, scraping the last of the dessert up with the spork that seems to be utensil of choice here and sigh, leaning back contentedly. Roxley is smiling slightly as he watches me. “It is good to see that our civilizations share certain taste.”
I blink then nod, sitting up, “Yes.”
“I am surprised that you had no trouble with the Urike tentacles though, I understood that North Americans were pickier,” Roxley says and I know exactly the dish he was speaking of. It looked like a lurid, purple mess of suction cups and twitching meat.
“Ah, I’m a CBC. Canadian Born Chinese. My father was very traditional and I grew up eating, well, everything,” I explain and smile slightly, remembering pig brain soup and snake blood shakes. Yeah, trips back to his hometown was always fun and I quickly learnt to just eat.
“I see,” Roxley gets this far away look for a second before those dark eyes of his snap back to me. “A melting pot of cultures then. Interesting.”
I just nod to his words, sipping at the water that is laid out for me at my request. Over lunch, Roxley had extracted the story about the fort and the Wexlix spiders from me though he seemed significantly more troubled by the Hakarta than the spiders. Then again, I guess the boss monsters were something he knew to expect.
Gods, I hate being behind the curve, knowing less than everyone else. It reminds me of every time I was put into a new school as a kid - never knowing where everything is, always bumping into existing friendships and missing all the cues that everyone else who had a shared history got. Don’t date this person. Don’t talk to this one. That teacher was particularly stern.
“Adventurer Lee?” Roxley says again and I blink, coming back to the present.
“Sorry!”
“As pleasant as this was, perhaps we could continue this at another time. I have other matters to attend to,” Roxley says as he stands, pushing away from the table and I stand quickly too.
“Thank you,” I offer him my hand and he stares at it bemusedly before taking, shaking it once and letting go before he walks away.
Once more at the doorway, he turns to look at me, saying, “I shall have my companion contact yours to continue this then,” before sweeping out. I stare at him for a second, blinking and walking down to the Shop. Well, that was interesting.
“Boss monsters?” squeaks Minion, staring at us.
“As we said, they’re more powerful leaders of the normal monsters. They increase the speed the monsters under them breed and mutate,” Richard repeats again, standing on his own two feet. I glance down at them again, marvelling at the Shop. It hadn’t even been that expensive to have them regenerate his foot for him all things considered and we’d made enough that I had Xev fixing up Sabre fully right now.
“Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Pearson, for informing us,” Fred says, waving Minion down. Minion subsides like the good little minion that he is, glaring at us and I can’t help but smirk. “This is disturbing news. The Council will have to discuss what we should do about it.”
I blink, staring at him. Do about it? Do what? There’s not a lot that I can think of that we can do beyond what we’re doing now. Maybe work a little harder to level up, get tougher, get a militia together, maybe get some defenses? Okay, maybe there are things that can be done.
“In the interim, will your group continue to locate and attack these creatures for the Council?” Fred says, leaning forward. “Your actions will provide immediate relief for the city while we work on other options.”
Quest Received (Repeatable) - Kill the Boss Monsters around Whitehorse
Boss Monsters are appearing around Whitehorse. To reduce the danger of a monster horde, you must kill the boss monsters before they grow too strong. To succeed, kill 4 Boss Monsters.
Rewards: 20,000 XP
I blink, staring at the Quest as does Richard who flicks his hand to the side, waving the screen away most likely. Arse. Perhaps if we stick to around Whitehorse itself, the bosses will be more manageable. In fact, put that way, it’d be an easy way to game the System. I feel my shoulders loosen a little as I rationalise things, the recollection of the creature pinning me to the ground still fresh.
Richard is speaking again and I sigh, turning my attention back. Not that I expect I’ll hear anything useful but you never know.
Lana, not surprisingly, wasn’t particularly happy with us when she heard our story. She glared at all of us before walking away, leaving us staring at the half-made meal and wondering if dinner would be served. We sit around awkwardly, wondering if she’ll be back for nearly 15 minutes before we give up and Mikito takes over the cooking.
“John,” Richard says as I stare to where his sister left.
“Yeah?” I glance back at him guiltily, hoping he didn’t realise what I was thinking.
“We were talking and we were wondering, would it be possible to turn the lights on if you had the Credits?”
“Definitely. Just depends on how, but it’s not actually at all expensive. Just need a mana engine and battery for the generator and that’s not too expensive. About five hundred Credits,” I answer him and then shrug. “Don’t have the money right now though.”
“Yeah, about that,” Richard waves his hand and I blink at the transfer notification. “Call it rent.”
“Uhh… sure,” I accept it and then put it straight to buying the generator, smiling slightly as I feel the shift around us. I walk over to the light switch, testing it out before popping back down. “That’ll be useful.”
Richard nods, smiling slightly. It’s still light enough that we won’t need it right now, but at least we have electricity again, even if all our electronics are broken. Oooh, maybe we could get someone to fix up a TV.
Mikito waves to us, bringing us back to reality as she drops our plates in front of us. I nod to her in thanks and so does Richard before we get down to the serious business of eating.
“Are we doing this? Hunting the bosses?” Richard asks and I blink, the forkful of meat halfway to my lips. I frown, popping it in and chewing as I look to Ali who shrugs back at me. Going out, hunting and visiting Carcross, fighting. It was fun sort-of and necessary but after today, the threat is all too real. If there was anyone else…
“It’s not a great Quest,” I offer and Richard nods. Mikito stays silent, probably because we all know what she’d recommend. “But if we’re out hunting anyway, I guess it can’t hurt to have it.”
Richard nods and I go back to my meal. I guess that’s settled then.
Chapter 15
Rather than head out immediately, we spend the next day hunting around town, bringing new people out with us to gain some experience and meat. It’s interesting, working with the lower levels and after a quick discussion, the three of us split into two groups. Richard and his puppies lead one group of newbies, Mikito and I another. It helps us cover more ground and bring in more food and train up more newbies in the same time frame. Of course, we barely get any experience but after yesterday, the change of pace is rather relaxing. I can’t wander around in Sabre, but with Mikito and I around, the monsters we meet are more than easy to deal with if they get out of hand.
We keep each group with us for about half the day, each time we get back most of the members have leveled up at least twice. It’ll be a while before we can get most of them to decent levels, but as I understand it, even the normal hunting groups are beginning to bring one or two of the more advanced newbies with them.
The problem mostly is that of equipment. If we could get some of these groups outfitted properly, they could start hunting on their own. Unfortunately, till they have better equipment that they own themselves, they have to rely on us. However, that’s a raw deal for them too since we take most of the Loot afterwards as
payment for our time. It’s still a lot less than what we’d earn if we were working ourselves but it’s better than nothing.
As evening comes, I make my way to the Shop. My original rifle is unfortunately too broken to use so I have to buy a new one and my share of the Loot drop and the Boss fight should cover it I hope.
Ferlix Type II Twinned-Beam Rifle (Modified)
Base Damage: 57
Battery Capacity: 17/17
Recharge rate: 1 per hour per GMU (currently 12)
Yeah, the battery capacity is a bit lower but the base damage is significantly higher. I’ve also been able to salvage the mana battery from the other rifle so I can just swap it out as necessary if I need to. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that of course. As I walk out and straddle Sabre, I sigh as I stare at my Credit balance. Damn world. Credits fly out as fast as I earn them, fixing Sabre, getting new weapons, healing myself, learning new Skills. The list is endless and the only way to earn, at least for me, is to go out and risk my life. Again and again. I draw a deep breath and let it out slowly. Right, what is, is.
“Where’s Richard?” I ask, pulling up a seat next to Lana and Mikito.
“Mmm… with one of his ‘friends’ I believe,” Lana’s lip quirk slightly, waving her hand to the front door. “He’s gotten quite popular as I understand it.”
I nod slightly, recalling the way the majority of his group had been made of women. I guess his increasing Charisma score had certain side benefits. After a moment’s hesitation, I bury myself in dinner, murmuring words of praise to Lana. Conversation quickly devolves to the inanities of life, mostly led by Lana since Mikito and I know what we did.