by Lucas Flint
That was when I noticed another notification that had apparently popped up after I killed Reginald:
You are now Level 30! You can now wield the Cannibal Sword to its fullest extent! All Cannibal Sword Abilities and stat bonuses now unlocked!
Oh, yeah. I had forgotten about the Cannibal Sword, which I still carried in my inventory. I pulled up my inventory screen and clicked on the Cannibal Sword’s icon, pulling up its page:
Cannibal Sword
Status: Unique, Rare
+20 to Strength
+30 to Speed
+0.5 damage added to critical hits
25% increase chance in landing critical hits
Description: Originally wielded by the thunder god Arlos, the Cannibal Sword is a legendary blade feared and admired in equal measure by Swordsmen all over the world. Capable of shattering all but the strongest of blades, the Cannibal Sword is a dangerous weapon to be wielded only by the most experienced swordsmen.
Ability: Shatter. Instantly destroys any sword upon contact. Status: Passive.
Ability: Steal. Steals stat buffs from destroyed enemy weapons, which lasts for the duration of the battle only. Status: Passive.
Huh. Both of those Abilities seemed okay, though I wasn’t sure how useful they would be against Holly, who didn’t wield swords as far as I know. But I would equip the Cannibal Sword anyway just for the stat bonuses alone. That would make me lightning fast and hit harder than a train.
So I put the Feather Blade into my inventory and equipped the Cannibal Sword. The Cannibal Sword appeared in my hands instantly. It was heavier than the Feather Blade but also felt stronger and sharper. I swung it experimentally a couple of times before lowering the sword at my side, satisfied with how it felt in my hands.
With all of that out of the way, it was now time for me to face Holly. I had no idea what she was going to be like or what I was going to face, but I knew that it was now or never. If I didn’t stop Holly now, I never would.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
It was surprisingly easy to find an entrance from the roof of the Tower to the interior. There was a simple stone door in the center of the roof which popped open as easily as a bottle of soda, revealing an ancient stone staircase spiraling down into the darkness below. The deep, intense darkness made me nervous, but I didn’t hesitate. With the Cannibal Sword at my side, I walked down the stairs into the Tower itself.
Walking down the dark stairs, I was reminded of the stairs that led down into Vault F. The stairway down which I walked looked almost exactly like Vault F’s stairway, which made me wonder if Dad had based this area off of Vault F somehow. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, though I didn’t think so.
In any case, I couldn’t help but be amazed when I remembered that this was just a game or that I hadn’t even been in here for even one day. It sure seemed like I’d been in here for a week, but I knew I had not. It was yet another testament to Dad’s talent and skill as an inventor. Perhaps Dad couldn’t rip building out of their foundations or fly around in the sky of his own will, but he certainly could build things that most other people only ever dreamed of.
Soon, I reached the bottom of the stairs, where I found another stone door identical to the one I had just entered. This time, I actually did hesitate, listening closely for any sounds on the other side of the door before I entered. Yet I heard nothing, not even the faintest whisper of the wind, which sent chills up my spine. It either meant that Holly and Valerie weren’t actually here or that they were being silent. There was only one way to find out.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled the door opened and stepped into the chamber on the other side. I was stunned by what I saw.
I expected to find myself standing in a generic stone chamber, with the floor covered in thick, plush carpeting and flaming red torches burning in sconces on the walls. I thought I would find Holly reclining in a throne, with her legs crossed and a trembling, wounded Valerie lying at her feet.
Instead, I found myself in … I wasn’t sure what this was, to be honest.
The world around me looked glitched. That was the only way to describe it. A tiny creek flowed in front of me into a patch of dry sand, which did not seem to be getting wet from the water at all. Another part of the floor looked like a thick layer of snow, yet with bizarre, jagged lines carved into it. The ‘room’ did not even seem to have walls. It just endlessly extended in either direction for as far as the eye could see, making me wonder for a moment if I was even still inside the Tower at all.
In terms of scent, the place had no distinctive aroma at all. It was completely and totally scentless, which was a bit disturbing after dealing with the realism of the game for so long. I half-wondered if my nose was not working anymore but then realized that this room, in particular, seemed to be more glitched than the rest of the game. No doubt that was due to Holly’s corrupting influence.
But that just raised a good question: Where was Holly? The room—to the extent it could be called a ‘room’ at all—was empty of life in general. As far as I could tell, I was the only person here. Had I been wrong to assume Holly was here? What if she abandoned the Tower and took Valerie with her when she realized that Reginald was dead? Or maybe they left long before that just in case Reginald failed to stop us. If so, then it meant we came all this way for nothing.
Another possibility occurred to me: Holly had already succeeded in using Valerie to enter the Internet, but for some reason, I doubted that. I had a feeling I would know if Holly had managed to escape the Vaultwork. If Holly was as integral to the Vaultwork as Mecha Knight said she was, then everyone should know if she escaped or not.
“Holly!” I shouted. “Show yourself, you ugly, useless virus!”
“Ugly and useless?” came Holly’s voice, which seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. “Can’t you humans possibly think of better banter? But very well. You worked so hard to get here, the least I can do is confront you face-to-face.”
In the center of the room, a glitched portal rose out of the ground and Holly stepped out of it. She looked exactly the same as I remembered her being the last time I saw her, which wasn’t all that long ago. She didn’t come alone, however. She held a chain behind her, which I thought at first was attached to yet another Dark Dragon, but the figure who stepped out of the portal after her was not a dragon at all, but a human.
It was Valerie. She looked no different from how she did when Holly kidnapped her earlier, except far more tired. Heavy bags hung underneath her eyes, while her face was bruised and even bleeding in some areas. Her robes were torn in several spots, just barely clinging to her body and not concealing as much as they should. A thick black metal chain was tied to an even thicker metal collar around her neck, which Holly held like a girl walking her dog. Valerie actually looked like a timid, abused dog, especially with how weak her eyes looked.
“Valerie,” I said, taking a step forward.
Holly, however, yanked the chain forward and Valerie fell at her knees beside her. “I wouldn’t come any closer if I were you. Poor little Valerie here has already been through so much. She can barely even stand, the poor thing.”
My grip on the Cannibal Sword tightened. “I’m only going to ask you this once, Holly. Let Valerie go. Now.”
Holly looked at me with a smirk. “Oh, you silly humans. I’m not a simple computer program designed to serve your whims, like Valerie or Olga. As a virus, I can and will do what I please when I please. And right now it wouldn’t please me to let my only ticket to freedom go just because you told me to.”
“Let me put it another way,” I said. “If you don’t let Valerie go now, I will make you let her go. Is that more convincing?”
Holly put on a faux thoughtful expression. “A little, but not by much. I seem to recall killing you in one hit the last time we tangled. What’s to stop me from doing it again?”
I heard something snaking behind me and whirled around to see a black tendril—identical to the one which had killed
me the first time—rushing toward me from the ground behind me. I activated Dodge and jumped out of the way, narrowly avoiding the tendril, which struck empty air and then dissipated into nothingness.
“You’re a fair bit quicker on the uptake than the last time I saw you,” said Holly with a chuckle. “But it will take more than speed to kill me. You may have leveled up a lot on your journey here, but rest assured that your stats are still puny in comparison to mine.”
Biting my lower lip, I Scanned Holly quickly just to see if anything had changed:
Name: Holly
Level: ???
Class: Boss/Dark Sorceress
Affinity: Evil
Health: ???
Weakness: ???
Description of enemy character not available. No weak points detected.
Holly must have seen the horror on my expression because her smirk grew wider. “I take it your little Scan didn’t show you what you wanted to see? Poor baby. I wonder what it must feel like, knowing you went through all of this time and effort just to lose again.”
I dismissed Holly’s Scan and said, “Don’t count your eggs before they hatch, Holly. I can still beat you even if Scan doesn’t show me how.”
Holly laughed dismissively. “You are so funny. And stupid. But mostly funny, in a pathetic sort of way.”
My eyes narrowed. “Let’s see if you find this funny!”
I rushed toward Holly, feeling my increased Speed stat make me faster. It felt almost like I was using my super speed from the real world, though it still fell a bit short of the sheer adrenaline I experienced whenever I used that.
I reached Holly in less than a second and swung the Cannibal Sword at her neck, aiming to take her head off with one blow. Right before the Cannibal Sword connected with her neck, Holly blinked out of existence and vanished outright, along with Valerie. The momentum of my blow caused me to stagger forward and almost lose my balance, but I caught myself at the last second and looked around.
“Holly!” I shouted. “Where are you?”
All of a sudden, the environment shifted. A hard stone floor began spreading out underneath my feet like an ocean wave, while clearly visible walls and a ceiling appeared around and above me. Soon, I found myself standing in what appeared to be a full-sized throne room, complete with a magnificent stone throne that appeared to have been hand-carved by a master stone mason.
And sitting in the throne, with her legs crossed over each other, was Holly. She wore a bored expression her face, still holding Valerie’s chain in her right hand. Valerie herself knelt on the floor next to the throne, her resemblance to an abused dog even greater than it was before.
“Was that really your best plan for taking me down?” asked Holly in a bored voice. “Just run at me with a sword and try to hack my head off? Admittedly, it is a very direct way of doing things, but you seem to think that I am just an ordinary NPC like poor Reginald, albeit one at a higher level than most. The truth is that I am no more an NPC than you humans are. And that is exactly why you are going to die today.”
Without warning, thick black tendrils rose from the ground and wrapped around my wrists. They jerked my arms back, causing me to drop the Cannibal Sword, which fell on the stone floor with a soft clatter. I instantly felt myself become weaker because, without the Cannibal Sword’s buffs, my stats were a lot lower than they could have been.
“I am not terribly interested in playing silly games with you,” said Holly. “You see, I could have easily wiped out you and your little band of merry idiots anytime I wanted, but I thought I would either access the Internet before you got here or that you would get killed by my minions on the way here. It was a … mistake of mine to allow you to survive for as long as you have. But don’t worry. That is a mistake I fully intend to correct.”
A sudden weakness came over me, entering from the tendrils and going into my body. At the same time, a notification appeared in front of my vision:
Dark Sorceress Holly has inflicted Death upon you! You will die when the timer hits 0!
A second later, a timer appeared on my screen with 10 seconds on the clock … 9 … 8 … 7 …
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Panic rose within me as I watched the timer count down before my eyes. I struggled against the tendrils, but they held me down as tightly as steel chains.
And still, the timer counted down … 6 … 5 … 4
I closed my eyes. If I was going to die, then I didn’t want to see what it would be like. I knew that wouldn’t make my death any less painful, but I still didn’t want to see myself dying anyway.
Nonetheless, I opened my eye just a bit to watch the timer counting down: 3 … 2 … 1 …
I close my eyes firmly shut again. The timer was about to hit 0, and once it did, I would be dead. I would just have to hope that Mecha Knight and the others would somehow be able to stop Holly where I had failed.
But that was when a new notification appeared before me, which I could still see despite having closed my eyes:
Olga the Fairy cures you of Death! Countdown to death timer canceled.
My eyes snapped open in time for me to see the countdown clock disappear. In fact, I didn’t even feel like I was dying anymore. The tendrils still held me down, but that seemed like a minor issue compared to the fact that I was still alive.
“What?” said Holly, sitting upright in her throne. “Impossible. How did you survive a Death status condition? That shouldn’t be possible.”
“For ordinary players, maybe,” said a familiar feminine voice somewhere above me. “But for me, it’s more than possible. It’s easy.”
Olga the Fairy suddenly flew into view. She waved her wand at the tendrils clinging to my wrists, causing them to dissipate into thin air. I immediately picked up the Cannibal Sword and got into a fighting stance, though not without looking up at Olga and saying, “Thanks! When did you get here? I thought you fell off of Reginald when he took off into the sky.”
“I did fall off him,” said Olga as she floated closer to eye level, “but because I can fly, I avoided falling onto the ground. I told Mecha Knight and the others that I was going to follow you up here, though it took me a while to reach the top because of how tall the Tower is.”
“How did you save him?” said Holly, causing me to look back over at her. An enraged expression had crossed her face, making her look even less appealing than normal. “Did you hack the game to undue that status effect?”
Olga nodded. “Yes, I did, though technically it isn’t even hacking, because Genius programmed me to have access to the game’s coding.”
Holly’s hands shook. “No matter. All this means is that I will have to do things myself, which is what I should have done in the first place.”
Holly dropped Valerie’s chain, but then waved a hand at her. A transparent blue energy barrier appeared around Valerie, which I assumed must have been impenetrable because Valerie didn’t even try to escape. She just sat there on her knees, staring at me and Olga with pleading eyes as Holly rose from her throne like a queen about to address her court.
“I am still strong enough to kill you in one hit,” said Holly, raising her hands, which started to glow with dark power. “Even if you dodge my attacks, it is only a matter of time before you run out of Stamina and become an easy target. I would suggest running away, but there is no place in the Vaultwork to run to.”
This time, it was Olga’s turn to smirk. “That’s a good thing because soon, you will be the one running away from Bolt.”
Olga thrust her wand out toward Holly. A multicolor stream of magical energy exploded from the tip of her wand and rushed toward Holly. Holly held up her hands and conjured a barrier made of pure shadow in front of her, but the multicolor energy stream struck and blasted through the barrier, striking Holly directly in the chest and making her scream in shock and agony.
Holly’s whole body began glowing every color of the rainbow, flickering through the seven colors so fast that I could barely ke
ep up. Her whole body then glowed a brilliant white sheen and then the light faded, revealing Holly standing exactly where she had been before, but she looked … different.
No, she didn’t look different. It was the general aura around her that had changed. Before the beam struck her, Holly had given off a powerful, otherworldly aura, as if she was an invincible goddess that could not be stopped. Now, however, she gave off an aura similar to the other NPCs I had fought so far. She did not seem to be harmed, but she still looked at her own body in bewilderment.
“What …” Holly seemed at a loss for words. “What did you do to me?”
“Bolt, Scan her,” said Olga, pointing at Holly, “and tell me what you see.”
I frowned. “I’ve already Scanned her once, though.”
“Do it again,” said Olga. She looked directly at me with a serious expression on her face. “Trust me.”
I still wasn’t sure why Olga wanted me to Scan Holly again, but I decided that I could trust her, so I looked back at Holly and Scanned her again:
Name: Holly
Level: 60
Class: Boss/Dark Sorceress
Affinity: Evil
Health: 100/100
Weakness: Light
Dark Sorceresses are dangerous and powerful women who have been seduced by the Darkness to serve its will. They work primarily through magical incantations, potions, trickery, and manipulation of minions, meaning their attack patterns can be impossible to predict and even more impossible to defend against. They despise Maidens of Light more than any other creature in Keoria and will often drop everything else to kill one in their immediate vicinity.
My eyes widened. “Holy crud. I can actually see her stats now.”
Olga was smiling broadly now. “You’re welcome, Bolt. I am happy I could help.”
“But … how?” I said, looking at Olga. “Holly is a virus. How did you make her into a character I could actually fight?”
“Because Holly isn’t just a virus,” said Olga, “at least not anymore. Right, Holly?”