by Wolfe Locke
On the brighter side, something else had gone my way. I saw my leather jacket was hanging off one of my bedposts while my steel core bat leaned against the wall. From the look of it, it hadn’t suffered any damage at all.
When I realized I didn’t, well, you know, smell, I had to take a second look at myself. From what I could tell, I was clean, at least clean for me. My clothes didn’t reek and they had a look about them like they had just come out of the dresser and not from off the floor.
“Lirai,” I asked, not wanting to complain but needing some answers, “Why do I look clean? What happened to my clothes?”
Notification: Query - “Cleanliness.”
Details: All participants who hold the “Respawn” type abilities, when resurrected, are made to be more presentable. Their bodies undergo basic hygiene and cleaning during reconstruction.
Oh, I thought. I mean, it could have been worse. They could have just said, “Because you were dirty, bro, it’s bad for the viewers.” It was still better than some of the other times I had experienced being forcefully cleaned. It reminded me of group showers and fire hoses from my time in the service. I shuddered at the memory. It wasn’t a good time, very cold, and very public. Wait, reconstructed? “Lirai, you want to explain this reconstructed business?”
I wasn’t exactly surprised when no answers followed.
I turned my attention away from the lingering questions about myself, my body, and this second life and looked toward the outside. Once again, I cleared the clutter off my desk so I could easily see out the window. The crowd of the undead had swelled since my death, and I could see that even getting to my car wasn’t going to be an option. I realized that if that taking off in my car had ever been an option, that ship had long since sailed. If I did somehow manage to make it to the car, I’d never get through the crowd of the undead with it.
I drove a sensible economic vehicle. If there ever was a time I wished I was insecure and needed a way to try to boost my masculinity, this was it. I could have used one of those oversized, lifted trucks. In this situation, I knew I had one choice and once choice only. I would need to kill them all.
“Lirai,” I asked. “What’s the best way to prevent dying again? Do you have any suggestions for how I can get out of here?”
Notification: Query - “Death Prevention.”
Details: You must level up by gaining experience. Alternatively, for additional response control and adherence to stimuli, you must opt-out of the “For All Ages” category and choose either “Mature” or “Not Yet Rated.” This will increase your perception, reaction time, and overall information gathering abilities. Please note that this will remove the limited gore setting currently enabled and re-enable the sensation of pain.
Would you like to choose the “Not Yet Rated” mode? Yes/No?
If no, would you like to choose the “Mature” mode? Yes/No?
Ok, so there was a lot more gray area to that than I was comfortable with when it came down to trying to make a decision. I needed more answers before committing. “Lirai,” I asked. “What’s the difference between the two? Any suggestions on which one to take?”
Notification: Query - “Difference In Modes.”
Details: That answer is restricted. For access, please contact the administrator. Note: Information on how to contact the administrator is restricted.
Well, fuck me, right? “That’s no help, Lirai. Literally none at all.”
I was entirely on my own on this one. I compared and measured the two options as I considered the differences. Not Yet Rated was too indecisive for me. It was basically Dr. Pepper; neither Coke nor root beer. So that got a hard pass as I basically swiped left by default. That left only one option, and besides, just how bad could the pain get? I’d lived my whole life up to this point dealing with it.
I said yes to switching. I fucking hated losing, and even if it meant feeling pain, any edge was worth it. Obviously, in hindsight, opting into anything that increased pain was a mistake. A mistake that never once crossed my mind when I answered, “Yes, I’d like to enable Mature Mode.”
Chapter 12: The Trap
“Lirai, what does Mature Mode enabled actually mean? Since I picked it, no reason to keep it a secret now, right?” I figured since I had already made a choice, there was no reason for the little robot voice to not give me the answers.
Notification: Mature Mode enabled.
Details: Pain suppression for the participant has been removed. The pain threshold has been increased to reflect normal levels, and an additional 5% sensitivity to pain has been added. Visual interface has been adapted, and excessive gore filters have now been removed.
That didn’t sound like a winning decision on my part at all. I wondered what would have happened if I’d chosen the other option. Oh well, no use getting hung up on what could have been.
Notification: Emblem Unlocked - Big Brass Ones.
Details: For being one of the first 100 participants to opt into Mature Mode, you have been awarded the Emblem “Big Brass Ones.” This Emblem prevents certain death from single-target spells. If an attack would kill the possessor, their health is instead set to 1. This ability resets when the user’s health rises above the 80% threshold.
I quickly dismissed the prompts, anxious and ready to start round two. I know I should have been super apprehensive after my run-in with death, but I wasn’t, not even a little bit. At least not about the fighting; it was sort of like learning to ride a bike, once you got over the initial fear it was mostly smooth sailing, except for the dying bit. I was still feeling all sorts of ways about the increase in pain but tried to limit those feelings.
Dying and respawning had already been bad enough. I imagined that with the pain turned back on, being mauled to death by the undead wouldn’t exactly be a pleasant experience. I wasn’t excited to see what it was going to be like with the pain turned on high. They didn’t have a safe word to use for when you were being eaten by monsters.
Honestly, I could have just stayed in my room and waited out the clock until it was time for transport to the Black Tournament, but I had this lingering idea stuck in the back of my mind that not using my time to get stronger would be a mistake. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a genius or anything near close to it. Call it an educated guess, but nobody gets conscripted to fight in something called the Black Tournament to talk about their feelings over milk and cookies. A fight was coming my way, and I needed to get ready for it. I needed to prepare.
One thing that life had taught me was that the single best way to prepare for a fight, to prepare for a hard time, was through stress inoculation. Which in this case meant I needed to get used to getting my hands dirty through the best teacher of all, experience. As luck would have it, I had a fight waiting for me outside in the form of a massive mob of undead hundreds thick. Whether I could handle it or not was another matter.
A vague idea started to form in my mind. I had a plan. Ok, only sort of. I grabbed my jacket and the steel core bat and headed out. They say that no plan survives the first encounter with the enemy, and while I’m not entirely sure who “they” are, what I do know is that their wisdom has held up pretty well for me on an unfortunately consistent basis.
On that note, what I wish I could tell you is that I had this master plan worked out, that I strolled back out to the cul-de-sac with all the swagger of Wyatt Earp at the O.K. Corral, but I didn’t. For the youngsters among you who don’t know, Wyatt Earp walked into danger and killed damn near everyone that came against him. He had friends to help him, but that just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, Wyatt Earp and his merry band of gunslingers. Regardless, I needed to channel that, to channel the essence of a one-man army going against the many, both the hero and the vanguard.
It didn’t quite work out like that. I left the safety of “My Room” behind and crept out into my ruined living room, checking to make sure none of the undead had managed to break into my house and were waiting to mob me. I didn’t know ho
w that would go for me if the undead flooded my house, and I wasn’t in a hurry to find out.
One thing stood out that hadn’t been there before; the randomness of it drew my attention. Lying out on top of the broken ruins that had been my granite countertops was a brown sealed box, a box I recognized from the many, many adventures playing “Click-Click Add To Cart With One-Day Shipping.”
I couldn’t actually remember what I’d ordered, and it seemed a little crazy that I had overlooked the item before. Briefly, I wondered if maybe somebody had put it there, but dismissed the notion; I hadn’t seen anybody enter. Mostly for shits and giggles, because honestly what good could an impulse buy from before the apocalypse do, I decided to check out the box before heading out.
As soon as I reached over to grab the box, I knew I’d made a mistake. “Fuck, this isn’t cardboard.” It felt leathery, more like skin than anything else. I immediately tried to retract my hands but had no luck; they were stuck to the box. Even worse, I began to feel this needle-like puncturing sensation, as if a thousand tiny teeth were biting me. Which was basically the case. I tried to lift the box, intending to break it by slamming it back down onto the rock slab, but I couldn’t lift it. I don’t know how much the box weighed, but it was heavy like it was full of rocks or weights. There was no way I’d be able to maneuver it.
“Lirai!” I screamed, “A little help, if you don’t mind? How the fuck do I get this thing off me?”
Notification: Query - “A Little Help”
Details: You are currently being restrained by a Mimic, subspecies Amazonius. This monster slowly consumes its prey by attaching itself with needle-like teeth and injecting an enzyme that allows for external digestion. At your current level, you do not possess the abilities or power required to break free.
Would you like to force a respawn? **Note: You may only use this ability once per day.**
Yes/No?
Being slowly eaten to death by a mimic sounded like a painful and boring way to go, and I had no intention of dealing with that if I didn’t have to. With the quickest confirmation short of a swipe right, I went ahead and forced the respawn.
An hour later I was waking up back in my bed. Some of you might have wanted to know some of the details, but at heart, this was my adventure, and my adventure was about how I learned to love the apocalypse and became a hero; it was not meant to be misery porn.
Chapter 13: They Were Legion
Let’s go ahead and put this out there and just get it out of the way. The truth was I punked out and basically opted for suicide. Was it the bravest thing I’ve ever done? No, not even a little bit. I may have enjoyed some rough trade in my day, but being literally eaten alive did nothing for me.
So anyway, I respawned almost immediately. Apparently using the ability to force a respawn wasn’t tracked the same as a normal death because one of those notification screens didn’t come up. Enraged was probably the word I’d use for how I was feeling and it didn’t take me any time at all before I was storming out of “My Room,” fully intent on destroying the box-shaped monster.
The destroyed living room was already beginning to change, the spider webs I’d seen just a few hours before had grown more numerous and were starting to slowly cover everything. I’d need to do something about that soon, before I had other problems on my hands, but this wasn’t yet the time. Of the spiders, I thankfully still hadn’t seen any. I figured if push came to shove, I could just light the rest of the house on fire to take care of the problem. If I understood correctly, “My Room” would still be ok.
Ignoring the webs, I gripped my bat, ready to bring the mimic down, but then I saw something that made my blood run cold and my face break out in a cold sweat. I saw the mimic in action. Not the flimsy little box mimic I’d seen on the counter, no, this was closer to its true form.
The mimic was still on the counter, but gone was the facade of the delivery box. You could still see bits and pieces of what was supposed to be cardboard, but I knew to be something far deadlier. The monster had thin brown legs, almost insect-like, that were covered in thin, razor-sharp hairs currently entangled around the waist of what had been my body.
It was pretty horrible to see, all in all. Sinewy brown limbs held up the torso as it tore out bits and portions of, well, what had been me and continually shoved its gruesome feast into a mouth full of teeth. Teeth where the box flaps had been. I shuddered and lost more than a little bit of my confidence in attacking the thing. Fuck me, was basically my mindset right before I started throwing up.
You have to understand, watching what I’d just seen, it messed with my head. Not just a little bit, but a lot. Who wouldn’t freak out about that? I literally watched my body, which at this point had already been about half-consumed and had taken on weird gelatin-like properties, be manhandled by that monster for food. It was scary and kind of disgusting and to make matters worse, the mimic was making the grossest sounds of contented pleasure I’d ever heard outside of a Hometown Buffet. Which was basically me saying it was making sex sounds.
“Lirai,” I whispered, not wanting to draw the monster’s attention away from its meal and start the process all over. “How do I kill this thing without getting completely fucked?”
Notification: Query - “To Kill A Mimic”
Details: You need a magical ability whose overall damage is rated greater than C class or a strength stat of 18 or higher. As you do not possess either of these things, it is highly recommended that you avoid engaging the Mimicus Amazonius and engage in one of the quests currently available to you.
Which are as follows - Optional Quests -
-They Were Legion (Destroy All the Undead Within the Subdivision, current quest progress, 2 of 1780.)
*Quest Reward - Ownership of the Subdivision, Settlement Building Granted.
-First in the Chute (Travel to the Battery to attend the Black Tournament without waiting to be teleported.)
*Quest Reward - One Magical Ability Granted via a Gacha System.
-I Choose You (Successfully Capture and Tame a Monster.)
*Quest Reward - 1 Slot Granted for a Permanent Monster Companion.
-Monsters Ate My Neighbors (Gain Access to Recruitment.)
*Quest Reward - 5 Slots Granted for Permanent Ally Companions.
I looked over the four optional quests, and the answer was obvious to me: I’d have to try for all four. These didn’t strike me as “rewards” but rather as required unlockable content. Content that I needed if I wanted to survive this mess. At least the first quest seemed obvious enough, They Were Legion pretty much picked itself. After all, they were literally right outside my house.
I glanced once at the mimic and gave it the dirtiest look I could muster. I had some other choice words for it but until I was capable of killing it, I didn’t want the attention. I had to settle for whispering, “I’ll deal with you later, fucker.” Yes, I know maybe the mimic might have fit the “capture a monster” quest, but until I was able to force a respawn again, I didn’t want to mess with it.
So off I went, running ahead, fully intent and focused on laying into the horde of undead that had clumped up outside of my house and filled up the block. Only 1778 undead to go, and what, two weeks to make it happen? I’d never committed violence on this scale before, but I figured I might just be able to manage. The most I’d ever really ever done before this was kill a box of girl scout cookies, or five, in one sitting.
I was smiling once I left the house, completely amped up and ready to start this thing. It was a mostly good feeling to have after the mimic had gotten in my head. I was thinking the entire time up until I was through the ruined front door, I can do this. I was feeling good, you know. I was there to kick ass, take names, and complete all the quests, it didn’t matter how underprepared or how out of my depth I was. I’d already died twice, and though I hadn’t learned much so far, I figured sooner rather than later I’d hit my stride.
I got all of five feet off my porch before some sort o
f crawling undead nightmare grabbed at my ankle. It was horrible timing too, as I had just laid into the first of the undead in front of me with my bat and couldn’t defend myself from the monster at my feet, being mid-swing like I was. I screamed, high-pitched and terrible, as I watched that monster tear a bite out of my calf in a split second, shredding flesh and sinew all the way down to the bone and causing my health bar to dip into the yellow. Which, if I hadn’t been in the most horrible pain I’d ever felt, I’d have thought was super useful.
Notification: Experience Gained - +12 experience, next level in 66 experience. +6 Sol.
Current Experience: 34/100.
Sol: 6.
No items have been dropped.
Let me tell you, tunnel vision can be a real killer. Speaking of which, as cool as it was watching the zombie’s head explode with a clang, the little visual upgrade wasn’t worth the pain. Opting in to Mature Mode seemed like one of the bigger mistakes I’d made in my life. This list of mistakes included drinking a little cactus water before a Zombie color fun-run, and a list of ex-wives.
When the prompt informed me that the gore restrictions and visual interface had been lifted, they really meant it. Gone were my slightly recolored neighbors, replaced entirely by monstrous ghouls with spidery limbs and rotting, sagging flash. They looked nothing like before and every bit the part of rotting undead. I’ll spare you most of the gory details. Just know I looked down at that bastard who had taken a bite out of me, and swung my bat down in a complete rage, pulverizing it.