Limitless

by John Gold

  Five months go by before the first players get to the portal. Oddly enough, they’re all Hunters and quite unique individuals. Cedric is a dwarf and space mage, not to mention being a Hunters Association scout. He doesn’t tell me how a dwarf was able to become a mage at all, not to mention such a good one that he was the first to get to the center of Tanatos, with their racial predispositions. Needless to say, he saw the message about how you need 500 people and victory over the keeper, and then he saw me getting up from the cube. The portals flash open, and he runs off in bewilderment. I’m only able to chase him down and bring him back when he realizes that I’m Sagie rather than the keeper of the portal. A quick conversation later, I send Cedric back to the Hunters with all the information I have about Tanatos in exchange for complete and lifetime access to the association’s data bank.

  A month later, Kurold arrives on his leveteur, as he calls it, a triangular board with three stationary mana storages he steers using a soul crystal. He’s an artifactor and an inventor, as well as a mage who has maxed out Mind Magic, Space Magic, and artifactory. At around twenty-seven, he has an active, fascinating mind, one step away from becoming just as fanatical about his profession as Isaac is about his. He can go without sleeping for days when he’s sketching out a new design on his portal board. Its indestructibility is a divine gift to him, and he’s constantly working on it. The third day, I find out that he has the annoying habit of burning his sketches as soon as he makes a mistake. And that happens with some regularity.

  Hawk’s squad is next. They have exceptional fighting skills, they’re great at analyzing any situation, and they can turn a normal group into a veritable battle machine. His fighters combine unique abilities and spells. When they try to take me by force, I kill them all, doing the same when they come back to apologize. I don’t like being treated that way. It’s only after the second time that I stop hunting them and agree to a shaky truce, concerned mostly that Hawk treat me as an equal. That’s the only way we can have a working relationship, and I achieve my goal.

  The first two hundred and fifty people turn out to be Hunters to the man. They all show up after hearing each other talk about it, as the continent I’m on is the best spot for them to work on their skills and levels while also looking for unique trophies. They’re also the cream of the player crop. Yes, regardless of the difference in levels, we respect each other as having gotten to the center of Tanatos on our own, rather than with the support of the gods or clans. The Hunters don’t have a problem with my massacre of the gods, and they don’t mention the angel cities I destroyed, the valleys full of demons, and the six giant fortresses. As far as the locals are concerned, I’m a pariah responsible for thousands of deaths. Most of the players are offered quests that get them helping the local peoples avenge the damage done to them, but it’s a unique time when I feel relatively safe and can grow as a person. I spent my entire life prior to Project Chrysalis in the orphanage, and I’ve been alone for most of my time in the game. But my need for communication with other people has grown along with my intellect. Here, I’m back in society, where one conversation is worth a thousand hours spent among the other anonymous engineers in the infonet. The Hunters are interesting to talk to, each of them opening up a new perspective on the world. For example, Hawk tells me how the reputation system in the game works.

  “Your reputation is your renown, your business standing, the goodwill you’ve fostered, and it can take different directions for each of the guilds and organizations. For example, you could have thousands of dead intelligent creatures on your conscience, you could be wanted in dozens of countries, baronies, and kingdoms. That’s negative reputation. It doesn’t have anything to do with us, but locals know about it. Did you know that the killer guild has a special contract out for you?”

  “They want me dead?”

  “No, they want the person to find you and invite you to join them. But that’s not all! Cities all have their criminal elements that hide or lead double lives. For them, you’re perfect for their dark deeds, murders for hire, and things like that. The scale and nature of your reputation matters, too. For instance, you picked up quite a bit of infamy when you destroyed Airis Castle eleven years ago, and then there was killing the gods, your secret resurrection, running away from the clinic, breaking into one of the most maximum-security prisons in the world, and breaking back out of it. Then, you showed up for the trial, and people noticed you hanging out with Ekron. I don’t think I need to mention your attack on Leon. Anyway, everything you do is associated by the locals with everything you’ve ever done. Rumors spread, picking up new, juicy details. But then, you show up at a new city, and they don’t let you in. They say you’re too ugly. Your reputation is zero, which you would think means they’d be fine with you.”

  “So, the totality of your individual actions gives rise to rumor, and that serves as a modifier for your reputation. Opinion can be prejudiced in your favor or against it, while doing quests can boost your reputation quite a bit thanks to those rumors.”

  “Exactly. Take us, for example. We all have positive reputations, with dozens of cities, villages, and fortresses saved. My squad doesn’t accept quests we aren’t 100% sure we’ll be able to complete. Well, basically, so, we might show up in a new city, and they’ll hand us a unique or legendary quest right out of the blue. That’s why we spend so much time on our reputations.”

  Hawk isn’t the most vivid character among the Hunters, though he’s the one who takes charge of the group that’s forming.

  The next five months of my life are spent in this way. I sense everyone around me having fun hunting the raid bosses we summon, though I’m the only one who can summon anything stronger. Just for them, I summon the strongest creatures I can from the astral. It’s a fight to the death every day, in other words. Regardless of the fact that we already have three hundred people ranging from Level 5000 to my Level 10000, what else would you expect from a Level 10000 raid boss amplified ten times? There’s lots of unique loot with each victory, oceans of fun, and the experience of working together with the upper echelons of the Hunters. We’re loving it.

  Femida and Ekron show up in the eleventh month, Reiji a day later.

  I’m sitting in the crown of my tree, which the Hunters call the Tree of Worlds, next to the portal ring, when I sense that something is off. A silence has fallen, the birds have stopped singing, and the only sound in the air is a light breeze. Then, Femida sends me a message, telling me that some guy decided to duel all the Hunters one by one. He’s currently dispatching Ekron in her Satan visage. The poor girl had two of her four arms ripped off, and then she got sent flying off past the portal ring. Judging by how far she traveled, her opponent must be very strong.

  Happily, the duelist isn’t killing his opponents, just sending the most ardent of them off to the respawn. The Hunters, not being idiots, stopped coming after him. Femida writes to me after his tenth victory in a row. Even she, a sword master, was unable to wound him.

  It’s practically cheating! He stopped my sword with one hand, almost breaking it a second later. I could barely pull it away from him. Isaac is drooling, and he says you need to meet this guy.

  Why do you call him immortal? Why hasn’t anyone been able to wound him?

  Who knows? He doesn’t have a magic shield, he doesn’t have a bubble, the arrows you hit him in the eye with just bounce off, and even dissection didn’t help. I just ruined his clothes. That’s why he tried to break my sword.

  What does he want? What’s the point of challenging all the Hunters to a duel? You don’t get an achievement for that. I’ve checked.

  He said he’s looking for a strong opponent. There was a whole line trying to fight him at the beginning, then they rushed him all at once, and after that, the duels started.

  Femida is only messaging me because none of the Hunters want to mention it. Fighting for fun is one thing, while pointing out someone you respect and have fought shoulder to shoulder with is a different mat
ter entirely. Femida didn’t tell the guy to come after me; she wrote me so I could make up my own mind. Another strange thing about our guest is that his name and level don’t show up even when he does damage or takes it.

  I leap out of my tree into the portal ring. Yet again, the poor Hunters see the pancake I squish into turn back into my body. The duelist just smiles.

  He turns out to be around thirty. There’s nothing special about his looks, and he’s wearing simple clothing, though his hair is standing on end. He radiates the same energy coming from the cube, too. His eyes are dark brown, as is his hair. He stands about a hundred and eighty centimeters tall, and he’s powerfully built. None of the Hunters can match the strength I sense in him. He’s stronger than Krash, if weaker than death, the devil, and that thing in the astral. Limitless power!

  Finally, he stops looking me over.

  “So, you’re the strongest one here?” He smiles, brimming with happiness.

  “More, unbeaten. I’m sure you could find someone here who could take me on, but they’re just shy,” I reply, matching his smile.

  Oh-h, what a magical smile! It isn’t that it’s attractive; it’s more that it gleams with something close to ecstasy.

  An entire bouquet of delight dances across his mind.

  “Then, let’s see it!” It takes my opponent less than a second to jump into a karate pose and give the air in front of him a shove.

  Damage received: 23688015 (ignored: 25000000)

  13548686661530/13548686661530

  The shock wave nearly exceeds 25 million damage, and it’s not even the strike. All he did was send out a wave of air that wiped away everything in its path. Everything behind me was hit by it, including tents, bonfires, and dozens of Hunters who were killed or thrown back ten to twenty meters.

  Now, the space around us is clear. LJ reacted faster than I did, shifting my center of balance to make sure I wasn’t thrown backward. My opponent smiles yet again as if he’s found a new game.

  “Thanks. You’re really going to push me.”

  He quickly closes the distance between us, but I’m able to jump backward. And even though he misses with his thrust, we’re less than fifty centimeters apart. The first part of my body explodes into pieces; a death zone appears behind me. Nobody survives. A second later, the shoulder, arm, and internal organs that were ripped off regenerate. LJ activates my demon form, which I’ve been hiding from the Hunters—I need at least one ace up my sleeve in battle. Lightning, dragon breath, and a force blade earn me nothing but a happy laugh.

  “Yes, yes, yes! Show me what you can do, Sagie!”

  It reminds me of the fight I had with Krash when I was studying at the Academy of Magic in Kkhor. Could they be related somehow? Unpleasant memories unleash themselves in a powerful kick to my opponent’s face, with my body amplified and my speed boosted by my demon form. Neither my bone blade nor my chimeric shield is any use. They’re both gone. It’s a battle between two monsters.

  It’s quick healing, maximum strength, enhanced agility and thinking, thanks to my demon look, against monstrous strength in close combat. If I didn’t have my tree, I would have died in the first second. I even carry him up five kilometers in the air before hurling him down onto the portal circle. All that does, however, is make him slip when his boot tears. That’s all the damage the fall does. My armor is barely able to recover between his attacks, and he’s able to crack every magic shield I throw up with just one blow, no matter how much mana I pour into them. One of the paladins decides to see if he can do the same to a bubble. That just enrages him, however, and he gives the poor knight and his bubble such a kick that he lands several kilometers away.

  How long have we been fighting? An hour? Two? It could be more. Every blow I land hurts me and just knocks him slightly backward, though we’re both just sticking to hand-to-hand combat. Well, almost… I’m healing myself automatically, restoring the damage he does. In turn, he’s loving the battle, giving me all kinds of new injuries. I’m able to heal myself faster than he can hurt me, however. He tries a quick space marine kick. His hands are up and bent at the elbows, covering his face, and one leg is thrust forward. I drop left, cutting the distance, and give him a kick of my own with all the force and speed I can muster. My leg breaks; he’s thrown backward. When he lands on the ground twenty meters away, he laughs happily. We’re the only two people left in the portal circle. The Hunters have all retreated to a safe distance, from which they’re recording the fight. I don’t blame them. They’re getting an up-close look at the abilities I’ve been hiding from them.

  My opponent gets up, brushes himself off, and stops smiling. Anyone who’s lived in an orphanage knows when you should be afraid and of whom, and the orphan who still lives inside me nervously twitches. The lack of a smile, not to mention any sign of emotion, scares me. There’s something wrong with him!

  “My name is Reiji.”

  Human, Reiji, Level 10000, non-class

  To say that I’m surprised is barely the half of it. The best of the Hunters has barely reached Level 8900, and here there’s some guy at Level 10000 without a class.

  He continues.

  “Did you meet Aurin, too? Did he give you the same ability?”

  “Who is that? What ability?”

  I can’t say that we became fast friends after that battle or that he told me everything. No, we have another couple dozen battles at full strength. He checks back in every six hours looking to test his strength out on me. All the battles, starting with the third, are held on a plateau a kilometer north of the portal ring. My tree’s crown reaches a good two kilometers, and I’m more impregnable than ever underneath it. Although, Reiji does his best to poke holes in that theory. There are still two places left on my body that are guaranteed to kill me when they’re hit: my brain and my heart. But my lich is too much for him. The only way to kill him is to smash through his head, and after pushing my demon agility to the max, seeing my hundreds of spells, and dropping battle etiquette, killing my lich turns out to be several times harder than killing me.

  I only find out how he came by his strength a month later when he gives me the list of his abilities.

  “Four years ago, when I first heard the news that Sagie was back, I met Aurin. He gave me the limitless ability—I can use physical strength to whatever extent I can imagine. All I have to do is instill the strength in myself and throw the strike, believing that it has sufficient power. The same is true of the damage I do, though that’s much simpler. Once I do my maximum power, I remember it. But at that point, my subconscious blocks out the attacks. You, though, are able to use different kinds of attacks to the point that I can’t focus on them and fend them off. Covering up with fire, striking with lightning, and sticking your little blade into my skull was smart!”

  “That’s cheating! Where is Aurin? I want ten of those abilities!”

  “Aurin is a player, and I have no idea where he is right now.”

  “Hm, I’ve met a player who became a god before. What class is he? What level? How did you meet him?”

  “Non-level, non-class, non-category. He knew I wasn’t normal, and that’s why he offered me the ability.”

  What I want to say next needs to be said delicately, so I do my best.

  “You have a pathology where you don’t display emotion. It may be physical, or it may be a psychological trauma. Either way, the only feeling you experience is happiness when you’re fighting a strong opponent.” Reiji just smiles, that smile hiding his sadness and complete lack of emotion. “That’s what enables you to stay calm no matter who you’re fighting, switching back and forth to block different kinds of damage. You didn’t notice it because of my bone mask, but I turn off my emotions and become a lot like you when I’m fighting.”

  He relaxes and tells me his story.

  “I was born in the eastern quarter of one of the stations. Our area was where they settled people from the countries in the Far East, and their children tend to be very sensi
tive to emotion. They quickly figured out that I was different. Until I was twenty or so, I was an outcast and the black sheep of the family. The other kids and even the neighbors called me Reiji, threw rocks at me, and beat me up. Whenever anything happened, everybody blamed me. Occasionally, they went missing, and the security service came around to talk with me.”

  “But you didn’t do anything, did you? And don’t lie to me. I’m from an orphanage, so I know when and why people are lying to me.”

  Reiji smiles again, and LJ sounds the alarm in my subconscious.

  “Put it this way: once in a while, I might have been a distant factor in what happened. Anyway, I don’t feel any emotion whatsoever. All I have are desires and needs. Happiness for me is when somebody strong is nearby. That’s something you get with limitless. Every time I try to get a grip on your battle potential, I feel like I’m going to die of joy. How? How can you be so strong? Aurin showed me his strength, but even he had nothing on you.”

  This guy Aurin sounds like quite the interesting character. How was he able to add an evaluation of the enemy’s fighting potential into an ability he had made? How was he able to make it in the first place? The gods have a fixed set of abilities they can give out depending on their type, rank, and focus, while players, even the most unusual of them, are still just players. But he was able to make an ability and then give it to someone else. It’s definitely a violation of the game balance, and quite a blatant one at that, so he definitely won’t be just handing his ability out right and left.

  Reiji continues without waiting for a response.

  “When I turned twenty, they sent me to a military school. I matched up for everything they were looking for, and my parents were only too glad to ship me off. I was a liability to them and the other kids in the family. But even in the army, they were afraid of me. They called me Reiji, too, which means ‘psycho.’ Only our platoon leader was unafraid of me. He was quite the guy. When I asked him why he wasn’t afraid of me, he said that he knew I wouldn’t do him any harm until I absolutely had to. And there’s only one ‘have to’ in the army: your orders. He made sure the other privates left me alone, so I had four years of school and six years on my contract before joining Project Chrysalis. I don’t have anywhere else to go. The army was my family, but they gave up on me when I lost both legs and my left arm. My parents certainly weren’t going to hear of having a thirty-year-old freeloader. You probably know yourself about the underground clinics with refurbished med capsules for long-term immersion, and Project Chrysalis is the best world I’m going to get.”