Then they showed the huge Armageddon meteorite falling down on the cart, followed by the appearance of Supreme Grand Master Oyama and his immense strike from afar, crushing all the top players beneath their array of shields. There was nobody left to record me destroying the altar.
“Many have heard legends of Oyama, who joined the battle unarmed,” a commentator said. “Such myths have formed around many supreme grand masters of the martial arts. In answer to the question of where to find them, Snowstorm representatives have always said these masters show up when the time comes. It seems the time has come for unarmed fighters; Dis now has someone who needs a teacher at such a high rank! We have almost no doubt that this ‘someone’ is the class-A threat…!”
Other clips flashed by; material uploaded by the scouts who were first to the battlefield. They showed a bird’s-eye view over four black craters the size of a football field. White bones gleamed through soot on the desert’s burning sands.
The image froze. The recording rewound to the point where the battle was still looming on the horizon. A small section in the distance was highlighted red.
“Note the highlighted area.” The view zoomed in on the area and the holovideo changed to slow-motion. “Do you see movement? Unfortunately, at this distance it’s impossible to say who it is, but someone was definitely there on the battlefield. Our experts believe that it was the class-A Threat and their minions. And we have confirmation!”
The screen switched to a video interview, this time in Disgardium. A hunter with Asian features appeared on the screen. After a moment, I recognized him as Yagami.
“…I told you!” No comment!”
“Mr. Kobayasi! Yagami!” the journalists shouted. There were no microphones in Dis, of course, but the reporters still pointed some little boxes at him, showing the name of their news organization. “At least tell us the Alliance’s view on the outcome of the first battle?”
Yagami stopped and sighed heavily. I made out Darant streets behind him, and the portal building from which the Mizaki clan leader had emerged. The level three hundred and ninety forest elf rubbed his temples, then spoke.
“Unfortunately, the Goblin League has ended its relationship with all the clans of the Alliance… Just two days ago, I felt proud that Mizaki—the leading clan in Japan!—was part of the Alliance, a group of the strongest clans in the world. Now I sorely regret my decision. The Alliance leaders have committed grievous mistakes. The total losses of our clan alone amount to millions of phoenixes, and that’s not even counting the priceless loss of reputation with the goblins…”
There were other general shots: preventers gathering for fresh raids, broken recordings of battles with desert beasts. The presenter began to smoothly wind up the report.
“Only a few moments ago, we finally managed to get a comment from Horvac, leader of the Travelers…”
The stream switched to the desert. Top players were running around in the background, and I could hear the sounds of spells and the din of battle; they were clearing some mobs. Horvac appeared on screen, level three hundred and ninety-seven warlord, a mighty ore with fangs filed to a sharp point, shaved temples and tar-black hair gathered in a thick braid.
“Mr. Onegut, hello! Will you answer a couple of questions for Disgardium Daily?”
Horvac roared and shouted off to the side:
“Why are there journalists here? Hellfish, Cannibal, Seth! Why the hell did you let them in? Get them out, right now…!”
“Please, Mr. Onegut!” a velvety feminine voice said. Horvac thawed, nodded. “What does the Alliance plan to do next?”
“Bad enough we had a mole at HQ…” the leader of the Travelers muttered. “Now you want me to broadcast our plans online?”
“Is it true that you plan to use Armageddon on an even greater scale? Do you believe that Nergal will continue to aid you? Do you hope to restore your reputation with the Goblin League?”
“No comment…” the ore growled, disproving the presenter’s words that they’d ‘managed to get a comment from Horvac.’
The door bell drowned out his voice. A new screen appeared on the holopanel showing my visitors: Ed, Hung and Malik.
I went to let them in, not at all surprised—we’d agreed the day before that we’d go to see Hairo together, and the boys came to mine instead of school.
My friends and I hugged. I told them my parents were gone and they could make themselves at home. Hung went right into the kitchen, opened the fridge.
“Want something to eat?” My suggestion was met with widespread appreciation. “Gimme a sec.”
While I messed around with the replicator, Ed sat at the kitchen breakfast bar, flexed his fingers and began to sum up yesterday’s heist.
“Around two hundred legendaries, five hundred epics. Almost all of it broken garbage. The repairs will cost a fortune… Uhm… Gems, including epics—nearly a hundred. And three wagons of other resources—ingredients for cooking, alchemy, smithing and so on. We’ll have plenty of materials for leveling crafts… And we got a bazillion consumables, potions, elixirs. Combat and portal scrolls too. The Alliance has given us a year’s worth of supplies.”
The boys broke into smiles.
“How much is a ‘bazillion’ exactly?” I asked.
“A shit-ton,” Rodriguez grinned. “Would have been too much for us to bring out. And we wouldn’t have had time. Good idea with those haulers!”
I put some plates of sandwiches, eggs and sausages on the table, poured everyone a glass of juice and sat down. Watching the boys as they ate, I started thinking aloud.
“The haulers cost a lot, although Gruzelix gave me a good price. But all the same… I guess we can’t send it all through the mail?”
“No way. Think about it—if you could send any amount of items through the mail instantly, how would the transport guild make any money? There are no haulers in the sandbox, so we used mail there. Here you can only send up to ten items a day. And that’s only if you level up the clan first.”
“So we better level up the clan then! What do we need to do?”
Malik had been bursting to speak the whole time.
“Clan experience is calculated from the total experience of its members, achievements points, level and number of forts and castles, captured lands, victories in in-game events like the Arena and the Demonic Games, the clan’s capital and rating. Every time it levels up, the clan gets different bonuses. Have you ever even looked at the clan tab, Alex?”
“Like hell has he looked,” Hung rumbled, munching a club sandwich. “He doesn’t have the time.”
“Well, I…”
“It’s all good, Alex,” Ed raised his hands for calm. “Just so you know, the clan has reached level two and is well on the way to three. The victory in the Arena helped. And first place in the cooking tournament counted for quite a lot too. So it makes sense for you to keep going.”
“How do you picture that? A walking corpse making a three-course meal? The judges will throw up…”
“Yeah, that’s a problem,” Ed broke into a smile. “But keep it in mind, just in case. We’re doing pretty well ourselves. Bomb is still feeding the kraken…”
“Uh-huh,” Hung said with his mouth full. “Seems to have gotten even bigger. But my rep is going up slowly now. He doesn’t eat everything I bring; twenty or thirty points and then Orthokon leaves. If everything goes well tomorrow, I’ll get to friendly. If nothing changes, I’ll have to keep feeding him until I get to ti’usted, and then we’ll see…”
“What about that instance in the desert? Did you find the key?”
“No,” Malik sighed. “We combed all the surrounding Dig Sites. Nothing. Ancient bones, a broken sword, a rusty ring… A bunch of gray garbage. Couldn’t even sell it to a vendor.”
“I dug for information on Lavack’s Heart,” Ed added. “Didn’t find anything except one mention in an article about the known Old Gods of Dis. There was a wind god called Lavack, and there’s a legendary named
after him.”
“What about Holdest?”
“Didn’t have time yesterday, wanted to go today,” Hung answered.
“Yeah,” Ed confirmed. “After the meet with Hairo. If I understand him right, it’s time for us to legalize our incomes. We don’t just need a lot of money, we need a hell of a lot. Gotta fund the base, paychecks, a fullblown structure.”
“Not counting the Portal Key to Holdest, we have loot worth hundreds of millions,” I noted. “We collected it from the strongest players in the game who were participating in the most important event in all the history of Dis. Their items must be the best of the best for their slots, or close to it. And about that. How in the Nether did so many legendaries drop? Don’t they have one-hundred-percent protection against dropping?”
“If you die, everything will drop from you too,” Ed chuckled. “You got a lot of blood on your hands. But actually, there are other factors. Broken gear ahvays drops, for example. The chance also increases when you fight an opposite faction, to encourage interfactional PvP. And maybe this one is only rumor, but they say that you’re far more likely to drop gear in a wipe against a boss too. You know how it is. Snowstorm made everything as tough as possible. Almost twenty years of gameplay, and nobody’s at level four hundred yet!”
“Hey, haven’t they nerfed anything in that time?” Hung asked, scratching the back of his head. “Judge for yourself; Mogwai is twenty-seven, and he’s top #1. Minus a year’s break—that’s twelve years of active play.”
“There was one time,” Malik answered. “A few years after launch, I think. They boosted leveling speed. One of the last changes the devs made. Dis has been evolving on its own since then. As for Mogwai, his Azure Dragons powerleveled him to two hundred. Like any clan levels up its juniors.”
“Yeah,” Malik laughed. “We just leveled up our ‘juniors’ to a hundred in just half a day! Gyula doesn’t know how lucky he is.”
“Neither do you,” Hung noted, nodding at me.
“We’re off-topic,” Ed jabbed at the comm screen and brought up a hologram of a table. “Check out the plan, Alex. The mine is our legal and stable income. With current turnover, it brings in around a hundred thousand clear profit a month. But we could get a lot more out of it. Our workers aren’t high enough in rank to mine precious metals. And the place doesn’t just have metal, it has gems too. We haven’t reached them yet. We need a hundred and fifty capsules, not counting Stephanie and her helpers. That’s a minimum of three million phoenixes if we don’t mind getting cheaper pods, the standard model. I brought all the workers into the clan this morning and signed contracts with them.”
“How did they take it?”
“They celebrated,” Hung said shortly. “Opened bottles.”
“I’ll give them all loan contracts to buy a capsule today. Well pay them in gold. The workers can take out the money using the contracts and legally buy capsules with no trouble. At rank one, they’ll start getting some richer gemstones, and the clan’s income will increase by a quarter.”
“Any of those gemstones good for strength or stamina?” I asked. “I need three for my shield…”
“We’ll find you some,” Ed promised. “The top players had epic ones in their gear. We can pull ’em out.”
“For rank one, the noncitizens need to reach level one hundred. I can…”
“We can handle boosting a bunch of low-level noobs,” Ed interrupted. “But I’m not sure how yet… We can’t take them to Latteria—some of them are undead. Us too. Holdest is no place for the ones that stayed human. Same problem with the desert. Where we can we level them up?”
“Has Gyula restored the temple?” I asked.
“He should finish it today.”
“Then we’ll discuss it after. But in the meantime, this is the way I see it: we need to turn everyone undead and quickly level up, some place in the desert where players haven’t reached yet. The guards can help. I’ll lend you Sharkon too. Alright, what’s next?”
“Three million phoenixes for capsules. I suggest we don’t worry about selling the legendaries right now. We’re better off waiting for Overweight. For now, I have another idea. I’ve been leveling up Enchcuitinent. A little more and I’ll reach rank one. I can not only enchant items, I can disenchant magic gear too. That splits legendaries up into their source material, Shining Substance, but also, there’s a small chance that a Hero’s Heart can drop. That’s an ingredient for a bunch of top-level recipes in various professions, including inks for Inscription. The price of that ingredient is about to shoot up.”
“Why’s that?”
“Armageddon, Alex. You sorry excuse for a scribe! Didn’t you watch that interview with Horvac? It’s clear now that the Alliance was planning to wait until it saved up a couple dozen Armageddon scrolls. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to take on Deznafar. Their top scribes have a week-long cooldown to create a scroll, and Hero’s Heart is far from the most expensive ingredient. But the point is, the auction house is empty—there are no Hero’s Hearts up for sale. They’re rare as it is—few people willingly disenchant legendaries. The few hearts that do go up on the auction house get snapped up quick for rich guild banks.”
“Think you have the guts to disenchant them?” I smiled.
“For the base, Alex. Capsules for the workers! Listen, I took a few of the weaker legendaries that we aren’t going to use anyway.”
“How many is a few?”
“Around fifty.”
Jaws dropped around the room. Mine was no exception. Silence, then a groan from Malik. Ed continued:
“Armageddon is going to be useful for us too. You’re leveling up Inscription, right? If we’re lucky, we could get ten Hero’s Hearts. If I put ’em up at a million each…”
“Try one and a half. The Alliance is in a hurry. They won’t haggle.
Just group up with me when you disenchant them. As you know, Lady Luck and I have an arrangement.”
We talked for around another hour, discussing our plans. Apart from everything else, Ed suggested we invest in a range of promising companies, although he didn’t know which yet. Said he needed to read up on it. I was skeptical; what did we know about investing? We’d just lose our money. But then I remembered my friend Zoran from Vermillion and told Ed to research the First Martian Company. I liked his neurointerface idea.
We racked our brains for other ways to find money fast; until Rita left the sandbox for big Dis, we didn’t want to sell our loot, and it was unlikely to provide a stable income anyway.
We brainstormed the following.
Firstly, I had to drop some exclusive videos to Ian. Shots from the snowy continent would cause an uproar and warm up the public. Then we’d put the key to Holdest up for sale right after.
Secondly, Cooking. It made perfect sense to sell Roast Undead Rat Chitterlings. The dish couldn’t be made without my recipe, and it was a cash cow that could be milked for an age; rich kids would happily part with gold in the pursuit of fast levels. And now that we had a clan vault full of ingredients, I could figure out some new dishes.
Thirdly, we could sell maps of the local area and information on its fauna. The Lakharian Desert was already unlocked; there was no longer any point in hiding our information. I might be able to earn something if I paid a visit to the Dangerous Game Hunters and the cartography guild.
Two messages in a row interrupted our chat. The first was a text message from Hairo. Our new security expert said he’d wound up everything ’at his old job’ and was ready to fly to Cali Bottom. I confirmed the meeting and opened the second message. It was a holorecording, and it would have been better checked in private.
Karina Rasmussen appeared on the screen for all to see. We knew her as Goosebumps, friend of Overweight. We flew to Glastonbury together, and since then the girl had filled out nicely. Her long blond hair was gathered in a ponytail, her dark brows drawn down in a slight frown over blue eyes and rosy cheeks. Teachers from her school milled around in the back
ground.
The girl smiled nervously, spoke:
“Hey, Alex. Rita told me you’d like to meet me… Anyway, message me or call when you have time. I’m free tonight… And tomorrow too… Any time works, Alex.”
Contrary to my expectations, the message didn’t end there. The girl fluttered her long eyelashes and added:
“There’s something else… Wesley came to see me this morning. Big Po. He asked if I’ve been talking to you. Sony—I told him I was, and he asked me to tell you he wants to meet you. He said he went to your school, but you weren’t there. That’s all for now. Bye! Hope to hear from you soon!”
The message ended and I looked up at the boys. Ed shook his head.
“No, we didn’t see Wesley. Wonder what he wants…”
“He heard about the events in the desert, figured he was about to mess up,” Hung suggested and looked at me. “Are you sure it’s right to interview Ian in real life?”
“I think it’s our only choice. If the whole world learns that I’m the class-A Threat, then the preventers won’t dare try to get at me here in the real world. But first let’s meet Hairo, figure out the base. It’s high time we decided where we’re putting it. If anyone apart from Hairo and Willy know about Cali, then it isn’t an option.”
The boys shrugged. They didn’t like the idea of global publicity—they didn’t think that should be done until we became legal millionaires and could protect ourselves and our families not only from enemies, but also from stalking by journalists. And there’d be plenty of that!
“You going to go out with that girl?” Ed asked as if he didn’t care. “She looks a lot like Tissa, only…”
Hung motioned the shape of breasts with his hands and choked down laughter.
“Just a little bigger.”
“Nobody can compare to Tissa,” I cut him off. “I don’t plan to go out with her anyway, I don’t have time. But I’d like to know what Wesley has to say…”
Holy War Page 5