Chương 13

Fuck! What had Langdon tried to warn me about?

"John," Lucas said, clutching my shoulder.

"John, what the fuck?" I turned and looked at Lucas, confused.

"What?"

"We just watched the interview. What the fuck is happening? So they are killing people, just like that? We watched what was happening on the screens during the damn ad break, before they sent you over."

"Oh, so you saw everything. Good," I said, frowning.

"But what can we do?" Marcus asked, looking down at the table.

"Even that woman, Miss Bryce, the archer, said that we can't do anything. There's not enough of us to kill the army."

"But they are close, damnit." Lucas gritted his teeth.

"Have you seen how many people are fucking dying? We have to go. We have to do something." Marcus looked discouraged.

"I… I don't wanna die." When he said that, Lucas looked down too.

"Well, I don't wanna die either," the archer said.

"But are we just gonna let all these people fucking die? The Chinese did it. Why can't we?" But there was no pep in Lucas's voice when he said that.

"I actually have a little plan," I told them both. I wasn't sure it was good to reveal that I had been told about this by Leonardo Langdon. I feared that if I did, maybe the next interactions during the interview would be way more gated, and possibly even misleading, because of that elven bastard. So I just said, "I realized something. I think I know, first of all, how to get through the gnolls — because that was always going to be, like, a big problem.

And second of all, if you think about it, we don't really have to kill the entire army."

"We don't?" Lucas frowned.

"What are you talking about?"

"If the Boss is able to raise so many undead during the very start of the tutorial, it means that he has to be balanced in some other way, right? They can't just hand over a boss that is invincible. We are expected to kill bosses as, like, standard procedure. And if someone is not at an SS rank, that means a boss should be killable by a normal group of people. If a boss should be killable by a normal group of people, how come this boss managed to create an army, right?" I asked. They both nodded slowly.

"If it's so magically powerful — if it can raise so many corpses into undead to create this scary army — the boss has to be comically weak. The quest says it outright, right? Like, if we don't kill the boss tonight, it's not gonna be comically weak anymore, and it's gonna be beyond strong, because it will have killed so many people despite this glaring weakness." They both looked at me like I was some sort of genius.

I almost felt bad about appropriating the credit for the information I had been given by Langdon, but I kept explaining.

"So if we manage to go through the gnolls, we actually have a pretty good scout," I said, pointing at Lucas.

"Lucas can use his Farsight to direct us to this boss. It must be in a cocoon — in some sort of sarcophagus. It must be hidden away. It's like a sort of evolution theme. Right now, it's in its larva stage. Once it gets stronger, it will evolve. But before then, it's gonna be weak. So we're gonna find this boss. It might be guarded by, like, Alphas, right? That only makes sense."

"Uh, I suppose," Marcus said, hesitating.

"How… how do you know this?"

"I just deduced this stuff," I said, lying.

"So this is just like a video game, right? So it's gonna be super easy," I lied again.

"We go there. We use my skill, the Judgment of Raziel, to kill the Alphas. There's gonna be a couple, perhaps. And once we have killed the Alphas, we kill the boss. And once the boss dies, it's very likely that the entire army will collapse. Think about the show value of that, right? Like, they will display us killing the boss, and then the entire army just fucking falls to dust, like in The Mummy or something."

"That does sound like The Mummy," Marcus nodded thoughtfully.

"How do we go through the gnolls?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah, about that. Do you remember all the anal glands that I collected, and that you guys didn't want? Well, guess who's got the last laugh now?" Marcus took upon himself to go tell Tina and Hailey. We'd have a bigger meeting right after each and every last one of us had used the Skill Books and opened all the chests from today's achievements. Congratulations! You have reached Level 8! You have 9 unspent Status Points. Congratulations! Spear Mastery has reached Level 7! Congratulations!

Judgment of Raziel has reached Level 2! Congratulations! Crafting has reached Level 2! Congratulations! Running has reached Level 4! Floor Objective updated: Alphas of three different groups defeated — 3 of 3. All that remains is the Boss. Siege Broken! This Haven remains in the hands of its rightful occupants. Reward: C-Ranked Siege Chest — one per team member. New Achievement — Serial Overachiever! You killed more than three Alphas in one day! Tell me, have you got a bone to pick with those poor animals?

Don't you know they have feelings too? The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Reward: Bonus XP. Already applied. New Achievement — Special Delivery! You marked a target and killed it from a distance with a pointed stick. The Federation has fielded siege engines with worse economics. Reward: Recipe unlocked — Balanced Throwing Spear. Available at any forge. You're welcome. New Achievement — Motivational Speaker!

Your team was paralyzed by supernatural terror, and you broke the spell. You're like a modern day David Goggins! Reward: C-Ranked Corporate Chest New Achievement — Mercy? You destroyed nine Risen who used to be Divers. Who used to be people. The System has categorized these kills as: pending. We will get back to you. Reward: Willpower +5. You'll need it. New Achievement — Prime Time! You appeared on the flagship broadcast and were mostly polite about it. Viewership in your region is up considerably.

Reward: D-Ranked Showtime Chest I immediately dumped all my unspent points in strength. With the Tutorial becoming more and more dangerous, I sorely needed to fulfill the requirements for the Lance of the Hero. DUNGEON DIVER — PERSONNEL FILE John O'Donnell Race: Human (mana-less species — Integrated) Class: None — unavailable until reaching Floor 2 Level: 8 Unspent Status Points: 0 Health: 100/100 Mana: 8/8 Mana Regeneration: 0.

15/min — still yikes STATS Strength: 39† Dexterity: 14† Constitution: 13† (+15% — Armor of Raziel) Intelligence: 10 — Untouched. Consistently. Willpower: 16 ASSESSMENT RECORD (PERMANENT) Conduct: 97 (S) — Cooperation: 95 (S) — Creativity: 91 (S→SSS) Public Grade Display: ON [Hide Grades] — available at Level 10. Two to go. Hang in there.

SKILLS Spear Mastery — Lv 7 (F) Sphere of Intuition — Lv 1 (SSS) — Mana cost: 0 Fire Mastery — Lv 15 (F) Judgment of Raziel — Lv 2 (S) Running — Lv 4 Crafting — Lv 2 QUESTS DEFEND THE LARGE HAVEN — active. Before dawn. Tick tock. Fury of the Fallen Angels — details unveiled on Floor 3. Raziel's Fall — details unveiled on Floor 3. TABS [Achievements — 13] [Inventory] [Streaming Panel — 1 unread] (functions locked until Floor 2) [Global Leaderboard — still calculating. Don't ask.]"Wait, Mercy?" My heart sank.

I immediately checked the Sphere of Intuition and looked at my hands. There was no dark smoke in there.

"At least, it means those things we killed aren't considered humans by the AI or whatever this whole thing is." Now, though, my priority was to get the damn chests open as quickly as I could. I started with the C-Ranked Siege Chest. Inside of it, I found something that the System dubbed a Pyrotechnic Kit. You can now put on quite a spectacle. I looked at it, uncomprehending, and read the last line of its description. This will get anybody's attention. Is this… Whatever.

I didn't have time to muse for too long, and so I opened the C-Ranked Corporate Treasure Chest. Inside, on gray felt, sat a thin black slab. Was it— I turned it. It was. Is this a damn iPhone? I picked it up, and it immediately dissolved into motes of light before I could even turn it on. Team Chat unlocked. John O'Donnell has automatically added Marcus Jackson, Lucas Dawkins, Tina Martinelli, Hailey Marie to #Hyena Brigade. From across the Haven, I heard Lucas shout, "Dude, is this a goddamn Slack channel?

What the hell?"

"I don't know," I replied.

"Let me figure it out." I looked at the tab, and a translucent chat appeared right in front of me. Huh. Oh. I typed with my mind, and I wrote, "Hyena Brigade, John. Test." Read. I immediately saw the faces of my teammates appear in the read receipt. Holy shit, I can see if they've read? Tina is typing. She was typing for a long time — long enough that I wondered if I should just go out and have this conversation with her. Was she about to drop something heavy, something…

"HELLO?" Tina wrote. Ugh. There was a loud ping when she did.

"Holy shit, how does that— do I turn that off? The fuck?" I navigated to the settings, and I wrote in the chat, "Guys, turn the ping notification off. If this thing goes off while we're out there trying to be stealthy, we're dead."

"On it," Lucas replied, and I saw a thumbs-up appear. I focused on it, and I saw that Tina had reacted to the message. How did she do that? Half an hour later, we were all back at the inn, this time with Hailey and Tina there as well. Marcus had explained the situation to them, and I briefed them on what I intended to do.

"So, we have a way to go through the gnolls, reach the boss, and kill it. If we kill the boss, all those people in the Large Haven will be saved from their fate. If we don't, I doubt there is anyone with enough knowledge on all of this — or even just enough power — to break through the encirclement and go kill the boss. I know that I'm asking a lot out of all of you, so if you don't want to come, please feel free—""John," Tina cut me off, looking straight at me.

"We're coming." Hailey nodded mutely on the side.

"Tina, there is a good chance that we're going to die. One wrong move and—""John," Tina replied, tapping the table with her staff.

"It's okay. I came to the inn, and I saw some reels from the siege. There are hundreds of children in that haven. Bluemont said that children don't have to fulfill the dungeon requirements. They just have to survive it all. And I don't want them to die. Not to those zombies." I was about to say something about how a good attitude toward this wasn't gonna mean we would survive, or that we would be able to kill the boss. But I caught myself. I didn't want to be negative.

Telling my team that they had to be competent and efficient would undermine the competence and efficiency they had shown me today. We were on day two of the apocalypse, and we were making it work. I looked at them. I knew that the undead Alphas would most likely be different than whatever we had faced so far. That meant there was a good chance one of us would die.

"If I die," I said, "you can get my armor, Tina. It has a Fire Mastery skill. You'll probably get the best use out of it. So… did you guys all open your chests and get something good?"

"I got one more skill," Hailey said.

"A shield."

"Nice." I nodded. The others had all gotten some equipment that made them stronger. Marcus now had a knight's helmet on his face, which obscured his eyes from us. Apparently, it gave plus five Strength and plus five to Constitution. When I handed the glands to everybody, they all gagged and I had to help them smear across their legs, which made Marcus almost throw up then and there.

"Kid," Bluemont said, while I checked our supply, "Bosses are different. Be careful."

"I know. Can you tell me more? Maybe non-specific?" Bluemont thought about it for a moment and then shook his head.

"Under the current circumstances, the Dungeon is flagging everything as potentially specific info. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry," I said.

"It's going to be a cakewalk." The team and I reached the gate, smelling worse than shit. I looked at two Gnolls right outside, barely fifty feet from us, and sighed.

"Time to find out if we'll have to fight those creatures, now."