Chương 38

I looked at the hero's heart, and as soon as I focused on it, something happened. Requirements fulfilled. Spear Mastery — Level 15 ✓ Strength — 40 ✓ A Hero's Heart ✓ You are now qualified to use the Lance of a Hero. Would you like to use a Hero's Heart on the Lance of a Hero? Quick tip: you have to use the Heart on the Lance if you want to use it.

"Sure," I muttered the approval.

"Please do that." And so the lance came out of my inventory on its own and levitated in front of me. Everybody else was waiting around me, curious as to what would happen. Then the heart levitated from my hand and arrived in front of the lance. The lance was particular. It was called a lance, but it was actually much more like a glaive. It had a long blade at its tip, like a scary chef knife, attached with a few ornate carvings and four holes in the blade. The blade itself was not the color of metal.

It had a bluish hue and yellow carvings in it. The haft, instead, was white — fully white.

"My goodness," the now-awake King Pussycat muttered.

"That is a Mithril blade. How did you get this, Sir John?" I only knew of Mithril from video games, and I knew it was a very rare material in all of them, but I had no idea why King Pussycat was so stunned seeing it here. I would have to inquire later. For now, I was mesmerized by the spectacle as the heart sank into the lance. A small shockwave almost took me off my feet and made several people stumble all around. The Lance of a Hero was upgraded.

Item - Lance of the Hero (Rank - S) - Level 25 Description: This is the lance of a hero. It was wielded by someone with great courage and much foolishness, like all heroes have. Despite their gruesome death, it was passed on to a worthy successor. Strength, Plus 50 Dexterity, Plus 30 Constitution, Plus 20 Penetration Damage, Plus 300% Charge Speed, Plus 400% Throw Speed, Plus 400% Grants the following Skills: Recall Lance, Max Level (Rank - S): Summon your lance from up to five miles away. Cooldown: five seconds.

Heroic Throw (Rank - S): When you throw your lance at your enemy, your strength is temporarily doubled for the throw. The lance will home on your target and always strike true.

"Holy shit," I muttered, reading that as the lance slowly fell into my hands.

"This is the lance of a— of the hero," I muttered. I couldn't believe it. These bonuses were unreal, and as soon as I touched it, I felt so much strength coursing through me that I was blown away. This was beyond my wildest imagination, my wildest dreams.

"Wait — lance?" Lucas scoffed.

"Isn't that a glaive?"

"Oh, shut up," I said.

"Who cares? The System calls it a lance. Do you know more than the almighty System? Come on."

"That's a glaive, dude. You can say whatever you want, but that's a glaive," Lucas commented, and then got close, looking a little envious.

"I wish I had a weapon that cool. What does it do?" I smiled and read everybody the bonuses.

"Well, about time you got something to show for that triple-S rating over your head." Lucas smiled and patted me on the shoulder.

"You know this means that you have to fight the entire army on your own, right? Like, I am not doing anything now that you got that thing in your hand."

"Lucas, don't be a dick," Tina said. And then, turning toward me, she asked, "John, what do we do? Do we go back now?" She had defaulted to waiting for my opinion on the matter, and everybody around me looked at me for guidance. Well, I thought to myself, I guess it's time to be a reliable lead. I was about to say that we should go back to the Haven and rest before the battle.

But then I saw that King Pussycat and Queen Zosma's subjects were all half-naked, and that we still had two incredibly strong people — Queen Zosma and King Pussycat — at level one. I rubbed my face.

"We'll have to wait for the end of the day to get some rest. Now we need to go grinding. We'll outfit everybody from head to toe as best as we can. If you guys want to fight," I addressed the subjects of King Pussycat and Queen Zosma, "you will do so in proper equipment." The cat women and men looked excited about the prospect of fighting. And as I was reading their levels, I read that all of them were around level fifteen, which was pretty insane if you thought about it. Especially the women.

All the women were higher level than the men. Right, the pride, I thought.

"Okay, so let me think about how we should go about the grinding," I said out loud, knowing that now that I had the spear, I had to carry the weight for everybody until they were equipped — or until, in the two royals' case, their level caught up.

"Queen Zosma, King Pussycat, do you have any—" Before I could say anything else, the world around us froze. Well, actually, the world around me froze for a moment, and I was teleported away from them. I found myself sitting on a very comfortable chair, and I saw the space in front of me slowly unblur and reveal a giant elf with a shit-eating grin painted all over his face.

"John, John, John. The man of the hour is finally here." The audience clapped and cheered. Some of them booed. I looked around to see if there were any other guests. Lotheriel immediately caught that.

"Oh, no, John, you're all alone today. Well, sort of. Our usual interviews run way earlier than this, but the System didn't want me to snatch you up. You were pretty busy, it seemed." I looked around and then smiled at Lotheriel.

"Oh, how come the System was keeping me away?"

"Well, John, you have to tell me that. I don't know. I have the footage until you just reached the Cathedral of Undeath and were about to face the bosses. But then everything goes silent. Not even the System has anything. I've checked. So, you must be proud of the shroud of mystery that surrounds you. Talk to us about it." I could see the mockery in Lotheriel's eyes and the cruelty hidden around the wrinkles on his face.

Before I could reply, though, a beam of dark light appeared on another chair — but that person was fully blurred.

"Oh, and we have a special guest, guys. She has been waiting and is not happy about it," Lotheriel commented, clapping his hands. The audience now cheered like madmen. I stared at the shroud.

"See, we can't tell you who that is, John." Lotheriel smiled.

"It's show policy. We don't wanna ruin the surprise. But we can tell you — that's the person coming for your head and the Priest's throat. How do you feel about that? Are you nervous? And again, what were you up to?" The barrage of questions came to me, and I simply smiled, looking through the shroud with Sphere of Intuition.

"Bryce, I didn't know you were so thirsty for power." Lotheriel's face suddenly fell and turned toward the shroud. I looked at the elf and said, "Oh, the thing must have blinked. Was that the System?"

"Well… a little malfunction, I guess. Or maybe the System just wants you two to hash it out before you meet on the battlefield." On the other side, there was Bryce. But she looked different. She had blood paint smeared over her face, over a coat of white paint. She looked like a demon.

"Hi, John," the archer said.

"It's nothing personal." I looked at her and noticed that the blood patterns formed the shape of a skull. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"So, you are with the undead," I said slowly.

"The Sorvos Empire," Bryce clarified, "signed a great contract with me. I am sponsored by them and the System."

"What a sponsorship — to give up so much of humanity, right?" I commented.

"There are nine floors of chaos and death," Bryce said to me.

"Yeah?" I raised an eyebrow.

"You didn't answer the question. What's the reasoning here? Oh, there are nine floors of bad shit that might kill other people, so if they're gonna die, then I guess I should profit off their dead corpses, right?"

"Well…" Bryce was about to say something, but I cut her off.

"You're a coward, Bryce. I have no interest in talking to you. When I'll see you, trust me, I will reserve for you the same punishment that is reserved for all traitors. Execution."

"Oh, big words." Lotheriel blinked a few times and laughed, hoping to get a reaction out of me. But I was just staring at Bryce without particular rage — just a cold determination. The elf tilted his head.

"Well, John, how do you plan on doing that? Do you plan on doing it sort of like— well, we can't really reveal your skills, but there was this footage that the System made available for us, surprisingly. So why don't we show a few reels?" I zoned out as Lotheriel showed me using Judgment of Raziel time and time again — my best weapon up until I had unlocked the Lance of the Hero. And against a ranged fighter like Bryce, it could have been my ace.

If I had gotten even a glancing blow, the explosion would have killed her on the spot. Lotheriel clearly had a way to bypass the regulation that said that no skills could be displayed on show, and more importantly, he was doing this to completely ruin me. He wanted to give Bryce all the advantages. Now that she had seen something like this, she could prepare a counter. She would be able to fight me knowing my best weapon, without me knowing anything about her. I saw her smile through the war paint.

But then I put something else together. If the System didn't allow Lotheriel to look at what I had been doing since the Cathedral of Undeath, he must not know what happened — and therefore not know that I had the Lance of the Hero. If he did, he would have certainly mentioned it. And since he didn't, he didn't know about my best weapon. The reels stopped, and Lotheriel spread his arms wide.

"Oh my goodness, John, that is one hell of a skill. It's rare for the System to give us this kind of footage, you know? Aren't you happy?" The audience was laughing and grinning, the same as Bryce. But I knew something that they didn't. If the System had provided them with this footage, there had to be a reason. The System, just as Langdon had said, left nothing to chance.

"So, is this our last interview?" I asked. I had the recordings on me, but playing them now would put me in a weird position. It would definitely have the Sorvos Empire punished, and the same probably went for Lotheriel. But then I wouldn't know what to expect from the battle that would take place tonight.

"Well, that's up to you, John," Lotheriel said with a sweet voice.

"If you somehow survive, you know, there is the end-of-the-floor interview, the one we do just before the second floor. It's mandatory for the best Divers who garner the most audience. We do it country by country, you know, and sometimes we mix things up a little. But the System enforces it. So, with you having all these followers, if you survived, you would definitely be here again."

"Interesting," I said.

"But John, aren't you worried about what you just saw? Are you sure that your power is gonna be enough to take on Bryce and her men? Bryce." Lotheriel turned toward the archer.

"How many people do you have, if I might ask?" Bryce smiled widely.

"We have an army of twenty thousand, and we killed all the weaklings and all the alphas in our area. We are ready to kill anybody who stands in our path. The only reasonable thing is to join the Sorvos Empire. We're guaranteed to keep our own lives and not be turned into undead until the day we die."

"What a fucking deal, huh?" I laughed, rubbing my face.

"My goodness. Oh, my God. Sorry. Lotheriel, can I say — this is a little rude — Bryce, you really are pretty dumb." Bryce stiffened.

"What did you just call me?"

"Oh, come on, John. A cheap insult? Really? Is that all you have? And plus, Bryce came here because she has something interesting for you."

"Really?" I said with a smile.

"What is that?" Bryce was fuming, but through the rage, she managed to push a few words out to me.

"An offer from the Sorvos Empire. They offer you—" I blew a raspberry — a loud farting sound with my mouth.

"Yeah, don't care. Next. Lotheriel," I said, "so, is that all the stuff that you had to play? Just that reel? I thought you had more, right?" Lotheriel looked at me, slightly confused.

"More?" he asked.

"Yeah. What about when we came out? The big explosion and everything." Lotheriel swallowed.

"The System AI is not letting us access any of the footage. That happens, usually, when someone is so weak and about to face enemies that any information revealed about them would literally seal their death, skills or no skills displayed."

"Oh man, that sucks," I said, shrugging.

"So, this is the panel? We have the traitor with some weird face paint on her face, and no other footage than the old footage of me from before I went through the stronghold? It's pretty sad, man. But I guess that entertaining is not what it used to be, right?" The audience seemed to really respond to that. Despite being on Lotheriel's side most of the time, it looked like they only did that because they liked people being put down in front of them.

And now that I was speaking with this little regard and fear for both Bryce and Lotheriel, they were eating it up. They probably didn't understand why I was acting like this. In their eyes, I was just a madman running my mouth. In fact, before I gained the lance, the only thing that would have put me on Bryce's level would have been King Pussycat. If she had struck a deal with the Sorvos Empire, I was sure she had items, buffs, and who knows what.

At the same time, now that I had fused the Hero's Heart — a Rank A Hero's Heart — with my weapon, with those insane bonuses, and I had the Armor of Raziel, which so far had repelled any hit, I was really curious to face this woman on the battlefield. She probably thought that I would be easy prey to pick off from afar as an archer. And that was a really, really interesting thought for her — and a pretty funny one to me.

"Well, John, I wanted to wait a little, but since you seem to be in such a hurry, I have a little surprise." A screen appeared in the middle of the stage in front of me, and one in front of Bryce, and a large one above us for the crowd. I saw the Holy City. Everyone gathered in many smaller split screens, watching this interview.

"We're breaking the fourth wall a little, people. I'm sorry about getting meta with you," Lotheriel said, "but it will be really interesting to watch your reaction to the footage that we're about to play." Lotheriel scanned my face, looking for any sign of fear, suspicion, or self-doubt. But I had a good idea about what was coming. Or, well — I knew exactly what was coming. This was extremely predictable. It started with a few shots and scenes from the Dungeon of Enigma.

It showed Alice breaking down, unable to get the key out of the corpse, having a panic attack, having trouble breathing.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm useless. I'm sorry. I'm so useless," she repeated on the reel. Lotheriel paused the reel where I had to fish out the key for Alice and said, "This is the hero of the Haven, isn't she? What do you think of her now, John? Not that big of a hero, right?" I looked at Lotheriel and said nothing.

"Well, on to the next scene, if you have no comments." And it was, of course, the confessional, where Alice spilled the beans. This one had no intermission. Instead, stitched right after the confession was the scene of Alice hiding from the undead in a ditch, and then her discharging the mana pistols into the ground before reaching the others and smearing herself with the zombies' flesh and blood to look like she had just fought.

"Oh my. Oh my. The hero really has some dirty laundry, guys." Lotheriel clapped.

"It's a pity, though," Lotheriel shrugged, "that the System also barred us from looking at the boss fight at the end of the Dungeon of Enigma. I'm sure it would have been quite a spectacle, if you catch my drift." The audience laughed, and Bryce smiled widely, saying, "Is that the best fighter you have?" But the only thing that interested me was this: so, the System didn't allow Lotheriel to see inside the dungeon's boss room. The System was hiding things from him.

Which sort of made sense, since the System was supposed to keep things fair, and Lotheriel was doing anything he could to not have things be fair. Next, we were shown the crowd revolting in the Holy City. They were shouting. One of them said, "I emptied my mana all the time for her damn pistols, and that's what she's done with them? Are you kidding me?" The man shattered a glass of beer on the ground.

"If that bitch comes back, I'm taking her head off. What the fuck? I thought she fought to the last drop of her strength for us. I thought she almost died for us — and she was hiding all this time? And she was doing all of that on purpose? She fucking smeared herself to trick us." And that was just one of the many reactions. Some people were just silent. Some were even crying, their hopes shattered the moment their hero fell from the pedestal. I felt some rage now. That Lotheriel tried to put me down was expected.

But this — to reveal the truth about Alice after apparently propping her up, and me down as Selfish John — was the most disgusting thing. Now the people in the Haven — their trust would be broken. It would be completely gone if I didn't…

"Well, man. Sucks, right?" Lotheriel commented, trying to sound casual and friendly.

"How do you feel about that, John? That one of your teammates, supposed hero, is actually a little bit of a coward. And how did she behave at the end of the dungeon? We didn't really see much after the confession. So, what happened?"

"It was fine. No biggie," I replied. Lotheriel seemed put off by my answer.

"Was it now? But did you know this, then?" And then he showed me the reel of the hero's heart that Alice had found in the mud and whisked away.

"Did— did she tell you that she got a hero's heart? And she probably used it by now. Should have made her less of a coward, though. Maybe she used it on her guns, right?" The audience was gasping at that revelation, and even Bryce was surprised by it. The crowd looked distraught.

"Well, now you are the Holy City's only hope, right?" Lotheriel smiled. Then I saw that on the screens of the people in the Holy City, there was my figure — a little ragged, still covered in rotten flesh and blood — beside the more heroic figure of Bryce, in full armor that she wasn't wearing here. I caught that detail for a bare second before the broadcast adjusted and my screen disappeared. I see what he's trying to do, I thought to myself. Make me look weak and make Bryce look strong.

And now they think that the only hope they have is the guy that they have treated like shit. I sighed, and Lotheriel immediately caught that.

"Oh man, that must be, you know, a heavy weight on your shoulders. How do you feel about that?"

"A heavy weight?" I asked, confused.

"Why? Would you be scared of doing something like that?"

"Excuse me?" Lotheriel replied, frowning, recoiling even.

"You said it would be a heavy weight. Would you be scared of fighting for your people just because the enemy is stronger?"

"I mean, anybody would be scared," Lotheriel said with a heavier, scary voice.

"No," I replied.

"No, no, no. Maybe this must be an elven thing," I said.

"Such a coward I would be if, just because she's stronger, I wouldn't bring myself to fight," I said in between a large laugh.

"Or if I thought that this was a heavy weight. This is the opportunity of a lifetime — to fight for people I care about. And even for Alice. She was scared, Lotheriel. She was scared, and she made a mistake. Big deal. She's still on my team, and she's still with us, and she will fight. And if you ask me — I haven't seen what the stupid bitch can do, but I'm pretty sure that Alice is actually a much, much better shot. And at least she didn't sell herself to the enemy."

Lotheriel and Bryce were clearly unhappy at the reasoning I was putting on display.

"So, I'm looking forward to meeting Bryce, and I'll do that alongside my teammate. Four-time gold medalist, by the way. I don't remember the exact categories, but it was shooting. And, you know — guns against a bow. Trust me, it's gonna be fun. Now, if you don't mind, I'm kinda tired. I just destroyed an undead stronghold."

"Well, the— well, the System must have been helping you," Lotheriel said between gritted teeth.

"Eh, maybe. Maybe it will help me against her," I said, and I raised two thumbs.

"So, who's ready to see John win again?"