by Arthur Stone
In the flashing shots and explosions, Cheater counted eight enemies approaching. It was not an insurmountable force, but it was significant. Tossing a couple of grenades and then draining a full belt of ammo would be a good move. Anyone who survived that would be gravely injured.
Sadly, the grenades were above him. And he only had one belt.
So he leaned towards Button. “Climb away from here.”
“Where!?”
“Shh, be quiet. Anywhere, just not to the left. Go to the other truck.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll cover you.”
“You need to leave. Cheater, half of our party is dead already. Look at the icons. I might not have enough mana for all of them.”
“Go! Trust me.”
She sighed and slipped out.
Cheater estimated how long it would take her. In ten seconds, he could begin. Thankfully, the cloaked commandos were creeping, not charging. They had no idea he had seen them.
But there were quite a few of them, and he had no idea what they might be capable of. If they had paranormal abilities like immunes have, all kinds of surprises could be in store. What if they had a sensor, like Tat? Then they would notice Cheater in a few moments, no matter how tightly he pressed his face into the mud. His greatest advantage was attacking first. Or even his only advantage.
Should he activate Smile of Fortune? The situation didn’t seem dire enough for him to pull out his trump card. Otherwise, its use might become a fatal regret not thirty seconds from now. His new ability was not on the table.
He had no idea how it might help him here.
Pulling the bolt towards himself, Cheater gathered his courage and released, chambering the first round. He pressed the trigger. Immediately, powder exhaust flaring up into his face blinded him. It was impossible to take aim now, and he had to continue from memory, hoping to get at least one or two of them by pure chance.
Beyond that, he had to hope that his surviving comrades would realize the gunfire behind them was for a reason. Someone could come to his aid.
Before he was out of ammo, he began crawling backwards. Surprise does not last long. If even one of the attackers emerged unscathed, his wrath would be quickly directly at Cheater. A boom came from behind him, and the subsequent flash died out slowly. Something had caught fire.
Thanks to the new light source, Cheater clearly saw the ribbed egg shape of a hand grenade rolling towards him. It stopped just under the barrel of his machine gun. In an open place, he could have tossed it away in under a second. But under a truck, every move becomes more difficult.
Cheater mindlessly, reflexively, activated Tranquility on the grenade.
Then, he continued backing away.
The fuse would take a few seconds, if that, to burn down. Would Tranquility extinguish it? Even though the ability did not affect Brownian motion, the details were unclear.
He had to get out from under the car. Seven and a half seconds he had, at least. If the grenade did explode in the meantime, the shards would be unable to escape the sphere of no movement.
He could make it, as long as the enemy did not devise some new trick.
What? The machine gun refused to budge. It was fixed, as if by a vise.
Oh no. His gun was in the sphere! Not entirely, just the barrel. That was enough to prevent him from pulling it backward.
He would have to leave the gun. Besides, there was little ammo remaining, and looking for more in this firefight would get him killed anyway.
A dazzling number of lumens flared to life on the left of him.
As it faded, so did everything else.
Blackness took him.
Then, he saw a new message:
Note: The player Button is inviting you to respawn directly onto the field of battle.
Accept Button’s respawn? Yes/No.
So this is what it’s like.
Chapter 10
Life Eight. Nightmare Mode Dungeon
Note: You have died and lost part of your progress. Total losses: 36 Strength progress points, 4 Agility progress points, 19 Speed progress points, 5 Endurance progress points, 11 Willpower progress points, 7 Perception progress points, 34 Stealth progress points, 7 Reaction progress points, 42 Accuracy progress points, 8 Luck progress points, 2 Talent Level points.
The minivan shook mercilessly along the bumps in the road, bouncing him into the air or pushing his head against the glass. But Cheater just read the lines of the message announcing he had lost experience, over and over. His dull face revealed that he was lost in himself.
Perhaps for some, this kind of respawn was normal. But he hadn’t even grown accustomed to the typical cluster respawn yet.
Would he ever get used to dying?
Probably not, even though it was temporary death.
It was an incomparably disgusting sensation that grossly disrupted emotional balance. As his head began to recover, its first thought was regret at accepting Button’s offer. Respawning in that construction workers’ hut, or even in that rundown student hostel, would have been better.
But his mind began to clear. Logical questions flooded in.
Why was cheater in a minivan, not a truck? Where had the minivan come from? Another bump sent his head thumping into the window. God, who maintains these roads? It was dark outside, but the van shook as if they were crossing railroad tracks every yard and a half. The engine sounded terrible. Half a dozen times already, he would have sworn it was about to stall out.
Things inside were as dark as outside. He could hazard a guess at the silhouettes of a few other passengers. Some were talking, but it was too noisy for him to follow along. Yet it was clear, from the tones he did catch, that everyone was nervous. Roach was fully himself already, running his mouth without stopping. When the sky began to brighten outside, Cheater failed to notice.
At some point, he simply realized that he was no longer guessing where his fellow passengers were—he could actually see them. Each one of them he knew, of course, except perhaps the driver. A barrier separated the cab from the passengers.
He bent towards Tat, who was silently staring out the window.
“How are you?”
Turning, the girl yelled back the same question, in an attempt to separate the road noise.
“How are you? Awake now? Fog gone?”
“Fog...”
“Right, take a moment more, then.”
“What? Why? Roach has obviously been back to his senses for hours now, given how much he’s complaining. But I’m about as coherent as a bowl of oatmeal.”
“You’re new. You probably haven’t died as much as he has. It takes getting used to.”
“Getting used to?”
“You’d be surprised. Everyone gets used to it, and you will too. I’ve died too, you know. A few times. But this is your first resurrection on site, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s like losing your virginity. Not always the nicest experience.”
“Uh, so what happened? Where did they come from? I was sleeping when they attacked—no warning, no nothing. Just shooting.”
“Everyone else was confused, too. We made no fires, put up no lights, and camouflaged our vehicles and our camp. Claw has an ability that helps us hide from sensors and even from thermal imaging devices. It seems like they were just driving past. One truck and a few smaller vehicles. They stopped across from us and just—started shooting. Somehow, they saw our camp. Don’t ask me how. And they were driving so stealthily somehow that we didn’t even notice them until the shooting began. It’s hard to cover the noise of that many vehicles on the road. One of them must have had a pretty strong ability. Amazing that he was able to disguise the convoy while it was moving.”
“Ability? I thought they were atomites.”
“Of course they were.”
“Atomites can have abilities?”
“You’re tired, Cheater. You always say stupid things, of course, but not that stupid
. All sorts of creatures here have abilities, not just players. Immune NPCs can get so many you don’t have enough fingers on your hands to count them all. Even infecteds get them, but only at very high levels. Though I’ve heard rumors about advanced runners having them. Atomites get abilities too. Anyone on the Continent can get abilities. Even items here can have them.”
“What items?” Cheater asked, shaking his head.
“Items we’ve never had the luck to hold. They’re very rare, and you’d never sell them, not for any price.”
“How are we still alive? I remember seeing several of our icons gone black. Dead. Then, we got flanked. I tried to pull out, but then I had no options. I had to shoot at them blind, and point blank.”
“That’s why we’re alive. While the others were trading fire with the road, that group came from the side. I didn’t notice them. Neither did March, nor Hamster—since he was dead. That was probably thanks to the same freak with the disguise ability. At night, we would only have noticed them at point blank range. If not for you, they would probably have killed us all.”
“So the noise I made was in time.”
“Noise? You killed nearly all of them. Maybe one or two remained standing when your shooting stopped.”
Cheater finally looked at the party’s icons and frowned. “Wait...”
She sighed. “How can I possibly make that more clear?”
“Arab, Hamster, Claw. Their icons are still black. Why are they dead?”
“They’re out of the party now.”
“Huh?”
“How much mana do you have? I mean, how much Spirit of Styx?”
“I’m not accustomed to giving out the information.”
“So you’re not as foggy as I thought. Consider your mana, and how much your abilities drain. You probably don’t have enough for ten uses of your ability. Even five is hardly enough. Right?”
“Something like that,” Cheater evaded.
“Button is a priestess. She puts all of her bonuses, absolutely everything, into her mana. After all, her main job is raising the dead. For that reason, parties will take her, and they’ll expect nothing else from her but that single act. But even so, she cannot activate that skill too often. Her mana runs out quickly. Right now, with a full meter, she has enough for five. We lost eight. There simply wasn’t enough left for Arab, Hamster, or Claw. As soon as the brain dies from lack of oxygen, the player’s body crumbles to dust. There’s no resurrection after that.”
“This is nonsense,” Roach moaned, somehow hearing their conversation over the din of the viciously rattling van. “Hamster was our long-range sensor, Claw was our only camouflager, and Arab could shield the whole party from explosives for a few seconds. And now they’re gone. We could have raised any one of them, but March picked this noob instead. Bullshit! Looks like our boss is playing favorites. Can’t you all see how screwed we are? Three down in the first day. Four others have lost a life—and I’ve lost two. And that’s without twenty-four hours passing! In the first day, goddammit! Of course I thought this campaign was going to fail, yeah, but this... If I had known...”
“Shut the hell up,” Clown interjected.
He said it at normal volume, but somehow his tone cut clean through the room. Roach shut up immediately.
But Clown had a monologue prepared for the whole van.
“The boss decides who to raise. And he decided that Cheater needed to be raised. If any one of you thinks they know better than the boss, well, you know nothing. I doubt you have any brains at all. Only the leader has complete information on each one of us. Perhaps you think Cheater is good for nothing. But try remembering his performance so far. What do you dislike about Cheater? Can’t you see? Switch on your brains, for God’s sake! Who killed that machine gunner, the one who took you out like you were a child’s balloon? Cheater. One arrow, and the man was dead. Then who covered our flank when the atomites tried to surprise us? Cheater. And he covered it as well as any level 40 player I know could. Plus, he had the smarts to send Button away, since he knew the grenades might be coming. Otherwise we’d all be having this talk at respawn. Cheater belongs in this party more than some. Especially more than you, Roach. If you really think that Hamster, Claw, or Arab could have done more for the party—well then, why didn’t they? Hamster is a sensor. And he let a whole convoy sneak up on us! They rolled right up and cut loose before we knew what was happening. And you think he was important? No. Even that gunner on the hill slipped his notice until the end. Sensor, my ass. Claw’s camo didn’t help us, either. I’ve seen better. And where was Arab when that gunner took you out?”
“He can only stop explosives,” Roach protested.
“What’s that? Explosives? Then why did so many explosives hit us last night? He was worthless. No matter how good your shield is, it’s worthless if you don’t actually deploy it when you need it! Arab kept it down. It was as solid as the emperor’s clothes. I’ve seen a lot of things in this life, Roach. Not everything. But a lot. And I’ve learned not to judge others by numbers alone. The person is a part of the picture. Sometimes, a level 20 is worth something, and a level 30 is worth nothing. Cheater is the former. What does Cheater have to do with this, anyway? Are you unhappy with the boss’s leadership? With our losses? Then why did you let Button bring you back? The first time and the second time? You keep whining about how pointless this campaign is. Well, you could have come back a hundred miles away from here, in an ordinary cluster where no one’s ever heard of atomites. So why? Just decline the invitation, and you’re free!”
“I don’t know. I should have declined it. It was just reflex.”
“Reflex? That’s bullshit! You’re lying, but not to me. To yourself. It amazes me how well people can deceive themselves. No, you understand. You know why we’re all here. I’m the only one here who’s not running from something. The rest of you just won’t admit it. Alright, well, let me explain something that might just help you quit deceiving yourselves. Not all of you remember your past life. But everyone remembers things about the old world. Our amnesia is a selective thing. You may not remember playing computer games, but you know very well what they are. There were all kinds of games. Some were single player, some multiplayer, and some were played by the whole world. Massive multiplayer online games. When you played games like that, time just flew. I remember burning months of my life into one game. Playing there was like playing here. Not as realistic, of course. You worked to pump your numbers and acquire shiny combinations of pixels. Spending real money let you make your character stronger. Well, there were special areas in these games called dungeons. You could enter them on your own, or with a party. Clearing them out, killing the mobs and bosses inside, earned you rewards. These varied. Worthless crap sometimes, priceless treasure other times. Well, once you entered the dungeon, the leader selected a difficulty. At low difficulty, the mobs and bosses were the weakest—and the reward you earned was also weak. Higher difficulties were where the treasure started. The harder, the richer. At the highest level, unbelievably powerful items were dropped.
“On the Continent, it seems like there are no such dungeons, but there are similar places. Like the border areas between regions. Trade caravans cross at the lowest difficulty levels. They’ll even carry you across! You pay dearly for passage, and you get some shitty bonuses as a reward. If you want some good loot, you choose more difficult options. Sign up for a serious squad, and you have a decent chance of getting across. You may not get priceless treasure, exactly, but at least your prize will be worth something. You’re not here for shitty bonuses, Roach. You have chosen the most difficult of all the possible options. We have a mysterious party leader whose reputation is just rumors. Interesting rumors, but still rumors. There are no limits to fools’ imagination, so maybe they are all false. He’s always pumping beers, and he seems like he takes nothing at all seriously. What kind of boss is that? Only Janitor is a strong player. But he’s a severely mutated quasi, and normally their abilities are
blocked. He probably has none, or only a weak one. So he’s a walking tank. With weak armor. Yes, he has a grand reputation, but atomites and the gray spirits don’t give a damn about our reputations. So we have a strange boss, a party of noobs, and an unknown, difficult route that no one has used to cross before. That’s not just a mysterious crossing, Roach. It’s a difficult crossing. A very difficult crossing. Perhaps the most difficult I can imagine. Of course, it’s more difficult to go without any weapons, stark naked, and charging armies of atomites head on. But that’s truly impossible. That’s why you didn’t decline Button’s offer. As long as there’s hope of crossing, you’ll come back, again and again. Because if you cross the border successfully, the System will consider you worthy of the prizes befitting the most difficult dungeons of them all. Invaluable treasure.”
“I heard once about a skill this girl got by crossing that way,” Physic added. “Am amazing skill. She crossed the border with a weaker party.”
Clown nodded. “Mountains of distributable experience, bonus cells, and increases to your weight limit. Even an increase in your multipliers. Say you have a multiplier of two on your Accuracy. You could get another tenth of a point. You might even get an assignable multiplier increase! We’re here on nightmare mode, ladies and gentlemen, so shake the shit out your sacks, because there won’t be enough room for the good stuff.”
“Or there will be plenty of room because no one makes it,” Roach murmured. “This will be the first sunset we’ve seen. You think this is a promising start, minus three people and nearing ten deaths? And we’re in a van? I doubt we’ll even make it to sunset! This isn’t a crossing. It’s a comedy.”
Cheater stared out the window. Dawn had not arrived yet, but the brightening sky revealed new details.
He shook his head.
“Bullshit.”
Chapter 11
Life Eight. Car Problems
Cheater had heard about gray clusters more than once. He had also seen them mentioned in the manuals some stables printed to help beginners learn things about the Continent. The information was always presented poorly. In general, it sounded like they were best approached only after you reached level 30. And even then, never on your own. Only with a strong party did you have a chance of exiting by means other than respawn.
