Chương 164: Chapter 240: Red Tape

"So Reese told me that some of the Undead working for the worm gave him a message to pass on to you," Bee said, holding what appeared to be a metal breadbox. They're sending me a message? Presumably they're not on board with working for a brain parasite and are looking for a way to kill him indirectly, so what's in that bread box should reveal his weakness. Maybe. Probably isn't a trap because it's being handled by Brianna before it makes it to me.

Could be misinformation, but I'll reserve judgement until I see what's inside.

"You got it there?" Will asked, wondering why Bee would be the one delivering the message. She was known to be a bit more free-spirited than the others. Enough that it would be strange for her to volunteer for a simple job to hand something off to him. Odd." Kind of?" She said, offering him the bread box. Will took it out of her hand and was about to open it when Bee punched the breadbox into Will's chest, denting the metal and sending him flying backwards. It didn't hurt that bad.

Will's Resistance was outrageous, but his weight was still the same, so anything that could actually hurt him even a bit would send him flying. Will slammed to a halt against the walls of his tower, breadbox clutched against his chest.

"That was part of the message." She said, giving a satisfied nod as Will struggled to inhale. I see why they sent Bee for this one, Will thought as he climbed to his feet.

"Oh, and the norworm took control of Zodiac's Stronghold."

"He did what!?"

"He became a Lord, then sent out a bounty that claimed Zodiac was the real worm. Then Zodiac said he WAS the real worm, flung a bunch of shrapnel at everyone and flew away laughing."" WHY!?"

"I'unno." Bee shrugged.

"But the whole stronghold is super stoked to hunt Zodiac down and kill him."

"And the worm is in charge?" Will asked.

"Seems that way."

"And is he laying eggs in people?"

"He's actually taking worms out of people." Bee said.

"Everyone is extra sure that Zodiac is the worm because of it."

"Despite several glaring logical inconsistencies in his story…like how a vassal became a Lord in the first place." Loth said, inspecting the miasmatic patterns in the crystal. Bee snapped her fingers and pointed at Loth.

"Bee, I think you guys should withdraw from the 11 th Floor." Will said.

"Eh?" Bee asked.

"While Zodiac had control, it was great to get updates, but I don't like the idea of your offshoots being in close proximity to this guy for an extended period of time. If he finds a way to corrupt your bond, it's basically over for you. And us."

"I don't know how he would do it," Will continued.

"But he now has the resources of an entire Stronghold, and a complete disregard for social niceties when it suits him. Pull out before his attention lands on you."

"Everybody's disguised." Bee said, crossing her arms defensively.

"We'll be fine."" Please?" Will asked.

"…Fine."

"Don't make me tell Jean." Will said, invoking their highest authority. The seldom-used iron-willed grandmother who kept the girls in line. Brianna didn't invoke her often anymore, but when she did…it was mostly for Bee. Bee stiffened, face reddening.

"I said fine, geez!" She said, turning away.

"And Anna said she's gathered a good group of kids and she's in the process of getting them through their Trials." She called over her shoulder. It was possible, albeit impractical to carry people through their Trials. Since the Trial happened on the 1 st Floor, it was possible to find them as soon as they stepped out of the Door. But it was necessary when you considered that some of the people might be 12-year-old girls with noncombat Classes. … Are trials easier when the person has a noncombat class?

Because I remember my Trial was basically trying to kill me. … It might've been easier if he hadn't been starving and missing a hand, come to think of it, but it was still supremely dangerous.

"Can I get a list of everyone's Classes when she has them in her Party?" Will asked, glancing at Ria. Ria nodded, sending that request to Anna. Will picked up the breadbox and opened it up. Inside was a loaf of bread that had been flattened against the side of the breadbox by the force of Bee's punch. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. … oookay… Will thought, pulling out the bread.

I am kinda hungry anyway, Will thought, taking a bite of the flattened bread as he sat down to think. So what does this mean about the norworm? Is he running out of food or something? Will thought as he chewed. No, this has got to have something to do with the norworm's weakness… But what?

"Ria, what was fighting this guy like?" Will asked.

"Hard." Ria said.

"He's practically made of steel. I don't know how he got his Resistance so high, but most of my attacks barely seemed to tickle him and even after I got a good shot in he healed immediately after.

"More Resistance than me?" Will asked. That's unusual. So he couldn't have gotten that resistance from his Relic's base boost. There's no way. Each Relic would have to be individually giving him a hundred Resistance or more. And Fabron wasn't that tough. So there's some sort of synergy happening between his Abilities and his kit, which is causing him to have a HUGE amount of Resistance.

"Did he get tougher over the course of the battle?" Will asked.

"Not sure. If he did, it was so little that we couldn't tell." Ria said.

"Hmm…" Will hummed, shaking the breadbox back and forth. He's practically made of steel. The breadbox was made of steel. It had suffered a small dent from Bee's punch, but the bread had been flattened. Normally I would think the bread box is the skull, and the bread is the brain…but higher Resistance will make both of those two keep pace with each other. If his Resistance is as high as they're telling me, even his brain-meat is gonna be…crazy-hard. …

"Holy shit, the worm doesn't have a Class." Will realized. It doesn't have Resistance, either.

"Eh?" Ria asked.

"…he's probably been using some kind of damage loop that strengthens his undead to make his host unkillable, but the WORM isn't getting any tougher himself." Will said, shaking the breadbox around.

"It's a foreign body."

"What does that mean?" Ria asked.

"let's say you have an egg, and through some unknown means you wrap it in Blessed Steel. Then you hit the egg with a cannonball moving faster than the speed of sound. The Blessed Steel might be fine, but will the egg be unbroken?"

"Unlikely," Loth said.

"Right now, Void's brain probably still has a little bit of jiggle to it to act as padding, and the worm isn't really concerned, 'cause it's an upper-Floor monster specializing in brains. It can handle a decently tough brain. BUT, if we figure out the method that it's using to reinforce its own Resistance and then trick it into overusing that method, the worm will inadvertently trap itself in a steel prison of its own creation."

"All we have to do after that is give it a good hit to the skull with a cannonball, and the worm will be turned into paste inside the brain it's hijacking." Will said, brandishing the flattened bread and taking a bite.

"I see." Loth said, stroking her chin.

"That seems like it would work. What if it doesn't?"

"Hmmmm…trick him into lowering his Focus and steal his Kit?" Will proposed. From the reports he'd gotten, the Set was 2 rings, a crown, amulet, and two weapons. Will could steal other Climber's Relics while they were wearing them if their Focus was lower than his Acuity. Will's Acuity was pretty high, but so was a necromancer's Focus. If he could snag even one of the set items, the final set bonus would be disabled, and it would be all downhill from there.

"And your third backup plan?"

"Hit him from several hundred miles away with Hammer of God and see if it sticks." Will said.

"Hmm.. yes. Three solid plans." Loth said.

"I have the firepower," Will said, "But how do we pin him down in one place long enough to catch him? I've got a week left until I can go anywhere, and it's not like he'll stay in one place for eleven days out of courtesy if I'm winning…"

"And he's apparently found a way to become a Lord, now." Will said.

"Which means, he can buy himself a Door whenever he feels like it, and skip multiple Floors in the process. He could bypass the 8 th Floor without even setting foot in it. The net we set up is…basically pointless now." Loth tapped her claw on her chin.

"It's bad, but maybe not that bad," Loth said.

"It took you a long time to pay off the bounty Caddock put on you. Perhaps there are ways that Lords can drain each other's influence, and Zodiac means to employ them now that he knows the norworm has lordship?"

"Oh!" Ria said, dropping her fist into her palm.

"So that's why he was so pissed off!" On the eleventh Floor, nothing was going according to plan. Zodiac has filed a boundary dispute (x5220) According to the filing, you are conducting a large-scale resource-gathering operation, including Vassals and Infrastructure inside the borders of a settlement that is not officially part of your holdings. Zodiac has requested the minimum payment of 5000 Influence to resolve each instance.

You may refute these claims, and the System will grant another Lord (at random) authority to judge the matter. Until the matter is resolved, Influence gain in the disputed area(s) will be held in escrow by The System to pay the injured party.

"SON OF A BITCH!" Vincent shouted, slamming his fist into the crystal of the palace bannister. Wow, I'm actually mad, Vincent thought, inspecting his trembling hand. He'd been angry before, but it was usually a muted feeling. A distant, easily ignored sensation. What's different about this? Vincent wondered. Probably the stakes. He was trying to overturn the order of the entire Tower, to turn it into a paradise where everyone got a host, where he wouldn't ever have to hide from ANYONE, ever again.

He had revealed his identity in a blatant way, and even now there were people out there who knew what he was, and it scraped on his very soul to think that they were still breathing. And now this, Vincent thought, scanning the thousands of complaints that Zodiac had lodged with the System. Drowning him in red tape. It hadn't occurred to him that Zodiac could do that to another Lord. Then again, he'd never been a Lord before, so he couldn't be blamed for not knowing the specifics.

And that wasn't even the only type of frivolous dispute that had been lodged against him. Everything from sanitation to lighting had been claimed to be causing cruel and unusual suffering to his settlers and he needed to 'fix' them. He'd figured out after far too much time spent reviewing them that they were essentially toothless, designed solely to distract him from the ones that could actually stop him from advancing his goals. It was these damned boundary disputes.

Because the System was so obtuse, it didn't show him exactly where the boundaries of this 'settlement' were and what counted and didn't count as a settlement. He had to carefully determine the boundaries in person. Naturally, every single island that had ever been charted was on the list as well as several regions of space. I can ignore everything except for these. For these I have to make a workaround.

"Alright, listen up." Vincent said, drawing his gaze back up to the audience looking on with worshipful eyes.

"The worm's trying every trick in the book to slow us down, but we're not gonna let it. We're going to load everyone up into large transport barges and start hunting the inter-island whales." A murmur spread through the crowd.

"The worm is using Zodiac's powers as a Lord to try and starve us out of the islands, but he underestimates our resourcefulness. He underestimates our will. We're not going to let a little adversity stop us! Let's kill this thing and save the world!" Vincent said, raising his fist.

"WOOOOO!" The stupid hosts hooted like the mindless animals they were.

"Milord." One of his new Vassals whispered into his ear.

"Mmm?"

"Several people died of unknown causes overnight. Their bodies have been dissolving into miasma like a monster, so we think they were William Oh's spies created by an Ability. I'm sorry we didn't notice them."

"No worries. Less spies is always better than more," Vincent said, clapping the man on the shoulder.

"They're running in fear!" Vincent shouted to the crowd.

"Let's GOOO!" …get me some influence so I can finally kill all of you.