Mission complete: Tartila Mine.
Calculating your participation level and distributing loot...
The System in charge of the planet decided to show its true feelings for Tailyn, the kid who had refused to hand over the dragon’s blood. He didn’t deserve a reward. But that didn’t bother him—he’d been ready for that. On the other hand, what did surprise him was how long it took the god to evaluate who should get what. That type of thing was easy to figure out using the logs, and Tailyn had only taken out four of the thirty-five experiments, including what he’d pulled off in Mean Truk.
The answer to his unspoken question came a few seconds later. The game was too busy for silly reward calculations. Instead, its resources were busy upgrading the entire planet—Mark had done what he’d promised to do. He’d taken care of the lix problem.
General notification!
Required global update installed.
Update notes: all the changed on the planet have been returned to their initial form.
Valia’s hysterical voice chimed in to explain what that meant.
Tailyn, no! The lixes all turned into humans!
And? Isn’t that a good thing?
They aren’t just human... They’re freaks! Get back here—you have to see this.
Chapter 15
“THEY’RE... They’re...” Tailyn tried to find the words but couldn’t, unsure how to describe the horror the lixes had turned into. While they’d never been remarkably attractive, humans had gotten used to them over the years. But then...
“It’s a nightmare, Tailyn,” Forian said. “Can you talk?”
His question was addressed at a long creature only remotely resembling a human. The unproportionally stretched and slender arms and legs had too many joints, its body was short and puny, its neck was long and thin, and at the top was what was presumably a head. One thing Tailyn had never been able to do was draw, especially when he was little. If someone had asked him to sketch a person five or six years before, the result would have been something like what the lixes had turned into. Crooked mouths; eyes peering in opposite directions; long, hooked noses; and teeth jutting out. But the worst part was the top of their heads, the part where humans usually had brains. There was nothing there—no forehead, no hair. Their flattened skull presumably had gray matter, only there couldn’t have been much of it, and it only covered basic functions like breathing and screaming.
“Ugh glug-ugh,” the creature who had once been a simple green lix replied, and bubbles began appearing from its mouth from the stress. Tailyn would never have dreamed of calling it human.
“Motar!” Forian called as the boy’s eyes widened in horror. With one swift blow of his sword, the head of the guard separated the freak’s head from its body, and the population of Mean Truk dropped by one.
“Why?!” Tailyn yelled, stunned by the turn of events. “They could still become people! We need to give them time!”
But the answer came not from Forian or Motar, who were heading over to the next changed lix, but from behind the boy. It was a hoarse, cracking sound.
“Won’t happen, Leader. The System update was cruel and uncompromising—almost all the lixes turned into what you saw. No longer are they intelligent creatures, and they aren’t even animals. They’re just chunks of mobile meat.”
Tailyn turned to find another of the freaks. That one, at least, was somewhere closer to human, albeit still with some serious modifications. While it had the same elongated limbs and horrifying face, it could talk. That was a positive. They were going to be able to figure out what happened. With that said, the creature’s name meant nothing—Changed-882002. The boy’s perception, however, picked out a few features that seemed familiar to Tailyn.
“Mu-Ro-Din? Is that you?”
“What he turned into,” the erstwhile lix leader replied, scratching his shaggy hair with a long finger. “No magic, no levels, no abilities. All the way back to zero, and ugly and miserable to boot. I can’t even breathe normally—everything’s a struggle.”
Tailyn looked around dejectedly. It was a mess—Mean Truk had 130 lixes living in it, and they’d all suddenly turned into a version of human the boy couldn’t unsee. One after another, Forian and Motar were approaching each of the creatures and putting them out of their misery if they weren’t happy with the answers they got to the questions they were asking. But the worst part was that the new people were so unintelligent that running didn’t even occur to them. It looked like they were paying no attention to anything around them, focused entirely on their own spittle.
“What about Bar-Truk?” Tailyn asked, thinking of another advanced changed. The shaman’s right-hand lix was wise and strong enough up at level forty-six. If anyone was going to become human, it would have been him.
“Among the first to be beheaded,” Mu-Ro-Din replied. “Everyone short of level fifty turned into this mess. I’m a goner, too—my body can’t handle the stress. There are all kinds of problems, something inside going wrong, as well. At least, I can talk. That’s something. The god gave me thirteen hours, and then I’m done.”
“Here!” Tailyn gave in to the urge and handed Mu-Ro-Din a full regeneration flask. It was a treasure considering the fact that they only appeared in the store once every three months. Eyes lighting up, the new human made it clear he was in no hurry to die.
“Don’t mind if I do. I’m not sure it’ll help, but it’s a shot, at least.”
Tailyn had to help open the flask since the new human couldn’t do it on his own. Immediately, it was empty, and the city was suddenly filled with a heart-rending cry. Mu-Ro-Din was screaming at the top of his lungs. Throwing himself on the ground and rolling around, he pulled at his skin. Blisters filled all over his body only to pop and be refilled. Bones crunched. Clearly, the System was trying to figure out what was wrong with the body and what to do with it.
“Motar!” Forian was next to the screaming guy a moment later. Tailyn wanted to stop the guard, but he was too late—someone else beat him to the punch.
“Stand down!” Valanil barked, and the guard obeyed. “Let him yell. Tailyn gave him a regeneration potion, and I want to see what happens.”
The screams choked away—Mu-Ro-Din had fallen unconscious. Only the low moaning and unceasing crunching of bones bore witness to the fact that the process was still ongoing, and it took the System another thirty minutes before it figured out what it was going to do with the body. In that time, Forian and Motar made their way around the entire city and checked to make sure all the green lixes in Mean Truk had been turned into mindless freaks. All that left was the formerly red lix, and the group of city leaders crowded around him. Valia was the first to notice the difference.
“Hey, he’s starting to look human!”
It was true. His arms and legs had taken on normal human proportions, the extra joints had disappeared, his fingers had shortened, and his head no longer looked like a deformed pumpkin. A timer appeared above him to count six hours down to when the game would be ready to accept the new creature back into its ranks. Even his name was back to normal—Changed-882002 had become Mu-Ro-Din. Not only that, but there was a blue mana bar next to his shield bar, and his level was back up to fifty-four. The lix was gone; an analogous human had taken his place. Although, one more thing had definitely changed. Valanil was the first to notice that time.
“He’s a looker!” she said with a grunt. The System had turned Mu-Ro-Din’s ugly mug into a handsome, athletic male face with clean features and a neatly trimmed beard.
“Nothing special in my book,” Forian snorted, though he straightened his shoulders unconsciously. “Does that only work with the full potion, or could we use lesser flasks, too?”
“I’m afraid we won’t be able to test that out.” Valanil looked around at the dead bodies littering the city. Since the System was going to dissolve them in an hour, nobody worried about clearing them away. “You could have left one for experiments.”
“We’re not
crazy scientists,” Motar replied, his eyes down. “Better just stop their suffering.”
“Tailyn, what happened? Why did the lixes change?” The reptiloid had a barrage of questions for the boy. “Where’s Mark Derwin? What happened to him?”
“The Absorber isn’t a threat anymore. He’s gone, though he promised to be back in half a year. There were no coins in the laboratory—the experiments picked it clean.”
“They couldn’t get into the control center,” Valrus said. “I’m sure there’s something in there.”
“Oh, you’re sure? Like you’re so sure about everything else?” Unconcerned by his choice of words, Tailyn let them all come rushing out. “You don’t help, you don’t teach, you just walk around giving advice without doing anything yourself. And I could have used your help back in the lab, only I had to be the one helping you even though that put me at risk.”
“What?! How dare you, pipsqueak?! If it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have gotten into the lab in the first place. I’m the one who knew the code!” the reptiloid shot back. Despite his maturity, he was hurt. While he’d been asking himself the same questions before the trip, he was in that moment sure of his usefulness to both Tailyn and the city as a whole.
“I’ll be honest, Tailyn, our green friend is right. We’d be much worse off without him,” Valanil said. “Don’t forget that he suggested updating our defenses, and that’s what’s giving us a shot at surviving.”
“He also saddled us with a debt of ten million coins,” Forian said. “I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen when the god realizes we can’t pay that. There was nothing in Tartila Mine. But now’s not the time. Tailyn, did you get what One needs?”
“Yes.” The boy patted the hip with the container of dragon’s blood.
“Excellent. Okay, you head out now, and we’ll talk about everything that’s going on and what you had to do with it later. We need builders, preferably ten of them—that’s our only chance at building our defenses. Also, see if you can get something from One that will help protect us.”
The treasurer’s little speech seemed so apropos to everyone that the meeting wrapped up all by itself. Motar and his people carried Mu-Ro-Din into the tent; Valrus remembered something important he had to do; Forian and Valanil got into a private conversation about defensive strategies; Sadil headed back to his dark deeds. Tailyn, in turn, found himself alone with Valia.
“Coming with me?”
“I can’t,” the girl replied, her gaze falling. “I need to cook for everyone.”
“How is that your problem? Don’t we have a cook?”
“Sure. I mean, we did. Only everyone, even the lixes, complained about her food. So, since I had to learn, buy myself recipes, and pick up ingredients, my assistant and I are in charge of food now. That’s what I’ve been doing since you and Valrus left.”
“But...why didn’t you tell me?” Tailyn asked in surprise.
Valia blushed.
“I thought you’d yell at me. A city head, a duke’s daughter, heir to an ancient family, and cooking for numericals. If my father found out, he’d die of embarrassment. Valanil was opposed to the idea, too, though she came around when she tried what I’ve been cooking. It’s edible, at least. If we fight off the attack, we’ll find ourselves a regular cook.”
“When; not if,” Tailyn replied as he hugged the girl approvingly. “Forget it—there’s nothing wrong with cooking. And no, I didn’t forget about the tiramisu. When all this ends, and we can go back to a quiet life, you’re going to make it for me.”
Valia looked around before switching to their mental connection. She didn’t want anyone to hear them.
“When it ends? Tailyn, the Absorber said the planet is dying! Even the System said as much. A year, maybe two—that’s all we have.”
“Mark said we just have to hold out another six months.”
“And then what? Head out into some kind of big world with him? Where everyone is the same kind of person he is? Tailyn, Derwin has no idea what he did to our planet—sure, he thought it was the right move, but he didn’t stop to think about the consequences. I saw plenty of people like that back home. My father always ignored everyone else, not caring what the servants thought of his antics since they weren’t fit to polish his boots. It’s even worse with the Absorber. He didn’t even hide it—he was going to kill you and everyone else who knew about the black slime because we don’t mean anything to him. I don’t want to go along with that person. I mean, that fire elemental. It’s not why I ran away with you.”
“But we’ll die otherwise,” Tailyn replied, taken aback.
“Still, we’ll be together.” Valia shrugged and also went back to speaking normally. “Go deal with One, otherwise we’ll die even sooner. You have two hundred kilometers to cover, so head out. Good luck!”
The biggest issue Tailyn was facing was the lack of a teleport to One. While the virtual consciousness had given him quite a bit, he hadn’t thought to give the boy a way back once he’d finished the mission. Yet again, he had to decide between going around the mountains, which would have taken a month, or heading straight through them, which had taken about ten days the previous time. And that was a third of the time left before the attack. The boy looked around. Suddenly depopulated, Mean Truk was getting back to work. The builders were hauling stone to the new wall; people were walking around and watching the bodies on the ground beginning to flicker. Soon enough, they started ridding the city of their presence. Everything was going back to normal, just with a third as many creatures walking around.
The dragon hurtled off, carrying with it a stone for teleportation. With the unexpected penalties, the boy was only able to jump ninety-four meters, a fact that definitely slowed him down. But it didn’t turn out to be that bad. Li-Ho-Dun pushed forward quickly to drop the stone within sight of its master. Tailyn, in turn, activated his ability, flew forward, picked up the rock, and got ready for the next round since the dragon had either already placed the next stone or was just about to. With the speed his companion was flying at, Tailyn could do five or six leaps a minute, which ate up quite a bit of ground. Five hundred meters a minute, thirty kilometers an hour. Of course, he had to drink mana and return the rocks to the dragon, though that didn’t slow him down too much. When the sun dipped behind the mountains, he lost visual contact, and that did arrest his progress. Seeing them on Raptor wasn’t enough for the ability. He was forced to stop and rest, which frustrated him to no end—his map told him he’d just about made it the entire distance in just one day. There were just ten kilometers to go before he got to Grivok, One’s city. Nine minutes. Furious, Tailyn bit his lip and headed off on foot, looking to get the meeting out of the way. The sooner he wrapped up there, the sooner he could start back. But that wasn’t the end of his problems. Just a few kilometers later, he found himself staring at a broad chasm. There was no getting through it or even around it—teleporting across was his only option. And that forced a break. Eventually, weariness threatened to bog the boy down, but stimulants and a lesser regeneration potion did their job, maintaining his strength and consciousness. The first rays of light peeked over the horizon, and the boy quickly looked over for the stone on the other side of the chasm.
Tailyn knew something was wrong five minutes before he reached his destination. With about three kilometers left to go, he caught sight of a column of black smoke rising above the mountains. His perception told him immediately that it had to be coming from One’s city. Another dozen leaps, and Tailyn found himself on the edge of the cliff. He was back where he’d observed the city from the first time, back where he’d gotten his binoculars. And both those facts helped inform him why Grivok was burning.
It was under heavy attack.
The boy’s binoculars dropped onto his face shield, letting him see what was going on in detail. A shiver ran down his spine. Right off the bat, Tailyn recognized the freaks crawling over the city wall despite the horrific damage the defens
es were doing. They were lixes. At least, they were what the lixes had turned into. While the creatures had just gurgled in Mean Truk, they were moving steadily forward there, creating with their bodies a pathway into the city for those behind them. Nobody cared about the losses they were sustaining. A few avalanches of corpses had made their way over the walls and poured into the city, wreaking havoc wherever they went. Everything, even the buildings, was destroyed in their path. The black and white minions were doing their best to organize a defense, at some points even successfully, though they were unable to stand up to the onslaught. Their resources were limited; their assailants... Tailyn turned his binoculars on the other side of the wall and barely swallowed a curse. Everywhere he looked, all the way to the horizon, the area was packed with the freaks. Apparently, all the lix forces were at Grivok as they looked to turn into humans and take the fortress. And the defenses One had boasted so proudly of were powerless to stop them—energy shields were inflicting heavy casualties, killing hundreds or even thousands, only the machines needed time to reload. But the erstwhile lixes didn’t need time. All they required was their leader’s command.
Tartila Mine (The Alchemist Book #5): LitRPG Series Page 21