Chương 13: MADDY USES THUNDERBOLT!

The arrow led them out of Mossgrove. It led them down a road that became a path that became a smaller path that was basically just a thinner stripe of dirt in the pink grass. They didn't talk for a while. She was thinking about Thorin saying many like the number was a number he was used to. She was thinking about her mom. She was thinking about whether her mom would call. Well, she knew she couldn't call, but she could picture the fact that her mom would try to call, and her phone would ring worthless.

She was thinking about whether her mom would file a missing persons report. She was thinking about how the rent on her apartment was paid through the end of the month, and after that, what. She stopped walking. She held up Bolt. She pressed the side button. Bolt extended in her hand into the full spear with five clicks.

"Maddy?" Ben said.

"I want to try the lightning."

"... okay?"

"On a tree."

"Okay." She pointed at the nearest tree, which was a tree with a thick gnarled trunk and a wide canopy of leaves that were not green, they were a soft purple that the system had apparently decided was the canopy color du jour. The tree was about thirty feet away. She gripped the spear with both hands. She thought, hard, lightning. Nothing happened. She thought lightning again. Nothing.

"Maybe you have to, like, yell or some shit," Ben said.

"What..."

"Like in shounen anime. You have to name the attack. Like…Thunder Bolt or something."

"That's a fucking…Naruto thing, dude."

"It's an everything thing."

"I'm not yelling fucking…lightning."

"Try it."

"No."

"Maddy."

"NO."

"DUDE."

"FINE." She held the spear out. She closed her eyes. She inhaled.

"... thunderbolt." A bolt of yellow-white light cracked out of the tip of the spear with a sound her ears would never recover from and hit the tree at center mass and the tree did not become a tree anymore. The tree became a black smear up the trunk and a smoking crater where the roots had been and a small drift of carbonized leaves that landed gently on the pink grass, and there was a hot static-ish smell and a heat wave and a sound her bones felt more than heard. She stood very still. Bolt was warm in her hand.

A small panel slid in. [Skill Used: Thunderbolt!] [Damage dealt: 1, 247] [Tree HP: -1, 247/10] [Tree status: Annihilated.] [MP: -4] [Sparkle]"... what."

"What's it say."

"It says I did one thousand two hundred and forty-seven damage to a tree with ten HP."

"What."

"Twelve hundred damage to a ten HP tree."

"That's—""I overkilled a tree by like a hundred times."

"Did you tell it to—""I just thought lightning."

"That's a lot of lightning." She stared at the smear. The smear had been a tree. The small drift of carbonized leaves was still falling.

"... thunderbolt is a Pokémon move," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"It's a Pokémon move."

"Okay?"

"I think I named my attack a Pokémon move. I think the system let me. I think you can just name your attacks Pokémon moves and the system gives you the move."

"That's—that doesn't sound like a stable design."

"It does not."

"That sounds like the system has zero validation on attack names."

"It does not have validation on attack names."

"You could just—""I could just yell anything."

"Try Hyper Beam."

"NO. Are you crazy. Hyper Beam has a recharge turn. If I use Hyper Beam I'll be a sitting duck for one entire turn while my MP recharges." He stared at her.

"... Maddy."

"What."

"This isn't turn-based."

"... oh."

"This isn't fucking Pokémon."

"Right."

"You can just hit Thunderbolt again."

"Right. Right. Sorry. I—I'm having a moment." A bush rustled. She and Ben both turned. The bush rustled a little more, very overcommitted, and a green refrigerator-sized slime came out of the bush and looked at them. It looked at Ben specifically. Its two black dot eyes locked onto Ben. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. A panel slid in for both of them at the same time. [Tutorial Encounter: Defeat the Common Slime!] [Recommended action for Ben: Test your weapon!] [Reward: XP. Sparkle]"OH FUCK YOU," Ben yelled. The slime made a wet pudding sound.

"YOU SPAWNED THIS YOU FUCKING PIECE OF—""Ben."

"YOU LITERALLY SPAWNED THIS BECAUSE I HADN'T TESTED MY KNIFE YET. YOU SPAWNED A FUCKING TUTORIAL SLIME BECAUSE I HADN'T DONE THE TUTORIAL OBJECTIVE —""Ben."

"WHAT."

"It's about to shoot you." The slime was lining up a shot. Its body had concentrated a small green glistening orb near the eye dots and the orb was visibly accumulating mass. The orb of cum. Ben took out the wax knife. He ran at the slime. He did not yell anything. He also did not name his attack.

He just ran at the fucking slime with the wax knife in his hand and slashed it across the side in a long arc, and the wax knife went through the slime's outer membrane like a knife through Jell-O, and the slime made a sound like a small balloon, and a wet wedge of green fell off the side and slopped onto the pink grass. The slime turned. The slime tried to face Ben. Ben slashed it again. The slime made another sound. A panel slid in for Ben. [Skill Effect: Wax Poison applied!] [The Common Slime is now: Poisoned.] [Poison damage per second: 4.] [Sparkle]"Thank you sir, thank you sir clanker," Ben said.

"Very helpful, very very helpful, very useful information sir." The slime tried to shoot its cum orb. The orb had lost cohesion. The orb dribbled out of the slime's mass and landed on the grass with a wet plop and did not even smoke much. The poison was working. The slime was visibly getting smaller. The black dot eyes were getting closer together. The whole slime was, frankly, deflating. Ben stood back. Ben watched.

Ben watched the slime die of poison in real time over the course of about twenty seconds, with the system narrating each tick of damage in a side panel like he was a child who needed the rules of subtraction explained to him, and Maddy could see his blue screen spamming bullshit on top of more bullshit. [Common Slime: -4 HP] [Common Slime: -4 HP] [Common Slime: -4 HP] [Common Slime: -4 HP] [Sparkle] When the slime finally collapsed in on itself and went translucent and stopped existing, the panel chimed.

[Quest Complete!] [Common Slime defeated.] [Weapon test: Passed. Sparkle] [LEVEL UP!]"FUCK YOU CLANKER," Ben said.

"What was its class," Maddy said.

"What?"

"Hey," she said to her screen.

"What was the slime's class." [Of course, Maddy! Sparkle] [The Common Slime is a Class F monster.]"... Class F."

"Class F?"

"Class F."

"Of fucking COURSE the monsters are ranked," Ben said.

"Of FUCKING course."

"That's—wait. That's kind of fun actually."

"Fun?"

"It's like Pokémon."

"It's literally just a tier list. And Pokémon doesn't have fucking tier lists. It's more like…Solo Leveling."

"It's a tier list. Yeah."

"Class F slime. Class F."

"What class are we, by the way." She squinted at her screen.

"Hey system. What class am I." [Of course, Maddy! Sparkle] [Your class is currently: Unranked.] [Travelers may receive an official rank at any Adventurer's Guild appraisal!]"... the Adventurer's Guild," she said. Ben crashed out.

"OF FUCKING COURSE THERE'S AN ADVENTURER'S GUILD."

"OF FUCKING COURSE."

"With like, guildmasters, and a quest board—""AND BRONZE SILVER GOLD RANKS—""AND PROBABLY A HOT RECEPTIONIST—""PROBABLY ELF—""WITH POINTY EARS—""WHO BLUSHES WHEN WE WALK IN—""BECAUSE WE'RE GOOFY OUTSIDERS BUT SECRETLY OP—" She was laughing. He was laughing. The slime corpse was steaming on the pink grass next to a tree-shaped smear of carbon. The arrow was still pointing east. The two suns were still doing their bullshit. Mossgrove was somewhere behind them. The system was sparkling.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist. Ben was staring at the air in front of him with a focused frown.

"What are you doing," she said.

"Putting my points."

"Your what?"

"My points. I leveled. I got five."

"Where are you putting them?"

"INT."

"All five?"

"All five." She stared at him.

"... why."

"Because you have twenty."

"Ben."

"I want twenty."

"Ben that's. That's so fucking—""I'm aware."

"You're so fucking salty."

"I'm aware."

"What are you at now."

"Nineteen."

"NINETEEN?? You couldn't even tie."

"I will catch you. I will catch you and then I will lap you."

"You're a literature student."

"I'm aware."

"You already said that."

"I'm a literature student with NINETEEN INT and I'm gonna lap your fucking ass." She was laughing again. He was standing on pink grass next to a smoking tree and a smoking slime with the wax knife on his hip and his hair still fucked from sleep, and he had just dropped five whole stat points into the stat that did not even directly help him fight, because she had six more than him and he could not let it stand.

"Cringe behavior," she said.

"Yeah."

"Like cringe-cringe."

"Yeah."

"Real Reddit user behavior."

"Stop."

"You're a min-maxer."

"I'm a stat-jealousy guy."

"That's the worst kind."

"I'm aware."

"You said—""I'm aware of that too." She wiped her eyes again.

"Let's just—let's go to the fucking dungeon."

The walk to the dungeon was supposed to be a half-day according to Thorin and was something less than that according to the system, because the system was, of course, doing the same time-compression thing the road to Mossgrove had done yesterday. She stopped trying to track it. There was no point. Time in this world was a vibe. The arrow led them off the path. It led them into a thin patch of trees. It led them up a small bridge. It led them down the other side.

It led them across a small stream that had two-headed minnows in it, for some fucking reason. It led them around a boulder. The arrow stopped. She stopped. He stopped. In front of them, the hillside opened. A wide arch of dark stone showed into the side of a hill, with old worn carvings on the lintel and moss creeping up the doorframe and a dark cool wind coming out of the opening that smelled like wet stone and something older than wet stone. Like old wet stone but... older. Right.

Two stone braziers stood at the entrance, burning with green-blue fire that did not seem to require fuel. Above the arch, carved into the stone in massive letters, was a name. THE CRYPT OF THE FORGOTTEN SIGIL OF ELDARION'S FOLLY Maddy read it. She read it twice.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"It's so fucking bad."

"Eldarion's Folly."

"The Forgotten Sigil."

"The Forgotten Sigil OF Eldarion's Folly."

"It's like five words too long."

"It's like Forgotten Sigil OR Eldarion's Folly. You don't need both."

"You don't need either, honestly."

"You don't—" She squinted. Under the big carved name, in much smaller letters, scratched into the stone with what looked like a knife, was a second line of text. Newer. Hand-scratched. Like shitty graffiti you got on bathroom stalls. THE DARKVEILS WERE HERE. She stared at it.

"... Ben."

"What."

"Look at the wall." He looked. He stepped closer. He squinted at the small scratched letters. His whole face went stiff.

"Oh."

"It's like the guy you told me about. AI Kael DarkVeil dude."

"OH."

"Yeah."

"That."

"Yeah."

"That motherfucker."

"Yeah." He stood there for a second looking at the scratched-in graffiti. Maddy did not know exactly what Kael was to him because Ben had not fully explained, but she'd picked up that Kael was the obsidian-hair AI-slop guy from the webnovel Ben had been reading when he died, and she'd picked up that Ben hated him, hated him the special way a lit student hates a bestseller. And right now Ben had found his nemesis tagged on a dungeon wall in another world. His face was doing a lot.

"He was here," Ben said.

"Well maybe not him dude. It just says DarkVeils. Like if it said Smith. Could be a billion people. Not me."

"He was here before us."

"No dude—."

"He was here before us."

"... we don't know."

"HE WAS HERE BEFORE US."

"SHUT UP DUDE STOP FUCKING TWEAKING."

"Right. Maybe he wasn't here."

"I don't know." A pause. He took a step back. He looked at the entrance. He looked at the green-blue flame in the braziers. He looked at the moss. He looked at the big stupid carved name. He looked at the scratched bullshit ominous message. Then he started unzipping his pants. She turned around.

"Are you—""I have to piss."

"You're going to piss on the—""I'm going to piss on the dungeon."

"On the entrance."

"Right on the entrance."

"With Kael's family nametag on it."

"With Kael's tag on it."

"You're a child."

"I am the second-most-dignified person in this clearing."

"Who's the first?"

"Probably one of the slimes."

"Fuck you." He pissed on the dungeon entrance. She stared at the trees. The trees were doing tree things. A bird in one of the trees made a sound that was close enough to a bird sound that she filed it. The trees were the only thing in this world that had not yet directly attacked her. The trees and Lefant. She heard him zip up. She turned around. He looked refreshed.

"Okay."

"…Okay." She looked at the dungeon. He looked at the dungeon. The dungeon looked back.

"How do you feel," he said. She thought about it. She thought about the slimes and the eggs and Gerald and John and Thorin and Lefant and her mom and the third egg and the system and the two suns and Bolt in her hand, which had retracted back to a knife without her telling it to. She thought about how she had cried four separate times in the last twenty-four hours, and how she had not cried in the last forty minutes. The not-crying felt like a small fragile thing she did not want to disturb.

"I feel like I'm in a fucking piece of shit isekai," she said.

"Yeah."

"And I feel like the piece of shit isekai knows it's a piece of shit isekai."

"Yeah."

"And it's daring us."

"Yeah." She tightened her grip on Bolt. She extended it. Five clicks. Spear. She walked toward the entrance. She walked past Ben's small puddle of disrespect, and laughed, because she was a child in a clanker world, and therefore she could laugh at piss if she wanted to. She walked under the arch. The cold dungeon air hit her bare thighs. At her panties-lacking shorts. She kept walking. Behind her, Ben followed. The braziers flickered as they passed. The dungeon swallowed them. A panel slid in.

[Dungeon Entered: The Crypt of the Forgotten Sigil of Eldarion's Folly] [Recommended Party Level: 3-5] [Current Party Level: 4 / 4] [Difficulty: Tutorial Plus] [Sparkle] [Welcome, travelers! Sparkle] [Your trial begins now.] She thought she could hear something further in. A drip. Or a footstep. Or both. Or a thing she did not have a word for yet. She kept walking.