Reincarnation Trials: A LitRPG Apocalypse (Systems of Salvation Book 1)

by Han Yang

  Thump.

  The foot, ankle, and half a ruined shin fell to the floor. I wrapped the excess skin over the wound and stitched the bottom of his leg up diligently.

  He stopped yelling at me by the time I finished, and I noticed he passed out again.

  I left him tied up, losing a limb was traumatic, and I didn’t want him going on a shooting spree when he woke up.

  I cleaned the wound the best I could and picked up the foot. When I reached the back deck where he was attacked, I chucked the foot into the water. After it sank, I fetched a side bucket at the edge of the boat.

  The chain let it dip into the river without tearing free. I hoisted the water up and onto the boat.

  For the next hour, I washed all the blood, feces, and nastiness out of the steamboat. While I worked the stiff broom and bucket, I watched the shoreline zoom by.

  Going downriver at this speed with the wheel spinning, left me nervous and I knew Yilissa was fully focused on keeping us away from the river’s banks.

  The task of cleaning out Apple turned into a bit of a pain in my back, but I scrubbed the deck and washed everything down the drain ports with enough time.

  When I skipped up the steps to reach the wheelhouse, I found Yilissa smoking a cigar.

  “Uh…”

  “Found Harry’s cigar box in the cubby near the wheel. Is Craig alive?” Yilissa asked and I nodded. “Took longer than I expected.”

  Instead of answering right away, I enjoyed the nice breeze. The shore zipped by, revealing a lot of webo’narocks basking in the sun. We passed a nest laden with the beast and I sighed.

  My hope for a quiet river ended with disappointment. The monsters weren’t even close to starving yet. They relaxed beside each other for now, but one day that would change.

  Yilissa sat up and to the right, elevated to watch the ship’s path from a good vantage point. On this upper deck a door went forward, and another room went back. Off to the side, a lounging slash dining area held a big comfy booth.

  I checked for signs of narocks and was happy they didn’t make it up to this floor.

  “Yeah, he’ll live. I did a good job too. A short peg leg will be Craig’s future, but it’s better than an agonizingly slow death,” I said, reaching into the cigar box.

  “I’m going to owe him. Feel like shit,” Yilissa said.

  “Life isn’t fair and he’s alive. How's the ship?”

  “The bow has a light. One of the fancy new kinds from across the water. You crank a wheel and it shines the water at night,” Yilissa said excitedly. “You’re not impressed.”

  “It’ll help. I'm worried because it’s just us.” I lit the cigar. “Do you want to turn around and get some backup while dropping him off, or keep going?”

  “At this speed, we’ll make it to Opo in two, maybe three days. Back in six. I think we let them worry. We have the boat off the docks and the big narock will probably be gone by the time we get back,” Yilissa said. “He is there for sure right now, and I’d rather not mess with him. Give Harry’s cabin a gander. So nice.”

  I puffed on my cigar, heading forward and into a private suit above the passenger cabin. Craig mentioned a lot about Harry, his former boss and captain of this ship. The man paid well, minded his passengers, and earned a reputation of always being on time.

  When Harry saw the monsters eating the dead in Lornsto, he charged in, telling Craig and Kayla to help him. They in turn pleaded with him to abandon his suicidal run. He left this part out the first time we met because he felt shame.

  I didn’t mind, actually understanding why he made it an omission. I did find everything he told us about the ship to be very helpful in our planning. Planning that went to shit right away, because that was what plans tended to do.

  “The captain sure had it nice,” I said, seeing a queen-sized bed, a big trunk, and a larger dresser.

  I rifled through the drawers, finding mostly clothing. The nightstand held a spare sidearm with a box of .45 ammunition. I grinned at the discovery. A man finding loot he could use had a certain euphoria to it.

  “Speaking of which, I call the whiskey. For when we get home of course,” Yilissa said. “I’d wager even if I got you tipsy your morals would keep you from becoming a deviant like me.”

  My grunt of displeasure answered for me.

  I found an image of older children next to a desk with charcoal pencil and paper. Stacked to the side of the desk were racks full of canned goods and toiletries. A private small room had a small toilet and sure enough, I found the fabled shower curtain.

  I almost ripped it down and fed it to the waters. Almost. Maybe they were right, I was wholesome and good for the most part. Every woman was a man’s daughter who would gladly put a curtain up to protect her virtue.

  I left the suite and went towards the back of the ship. The crew quarters had two double bunks. Three were neatly made. The bottom one had a cap in it that likely fit Craig, and I found a sock for a baby near the pillow.

  I decided to finally answer Yilissa when I returned to the driving and dining area.

  “There’s food for two in the captain’s quarters that should last us. Looks like he held meals for him and Craig. Hopefully, there’s cargo in the bottom.” I plopped down into the table’s booth.

  “This is a nice boat. Too bad it's so nasty,” Yilissa said.

  “Not anymore. I chopped off his leg quickly. I’ve been sweeping shit out the sides for most of the time. I ended up chucking some of the cushions overboard while keeping the foam, but yeah. It's a decent ship,” I said.

  “Were there narocks in the hold?”

  “About that... I’ll be back in a few…” I peeled myself off the nice, moon shaped bench.

  Echoing retorts from each step down the narrow stairway reminded me I was no longer in the mine, and I was actually drifting far away from it. Everything happened so fast, I lost sight of the fact I wouldn’t be with Roma later that night. I sighed, reaching the passenger floor.

  “Whiskey,” Craig croaked.

  I spun back up the stairs, noting that there was a large bottle in the captain’s quarters. Yilissa playfully tried to snatch the bottle as I hurried by.

  “He can sip for a day or two. Nothing too drastic,” I said, knowing it was all the pain killer we had and that too much would hurt instead of help.

  When I returned back to Craig, he shifted in a light sleep. I unbound him, carried him up the stairs, and left in his old bed with the whiskey. I even found a book nearby that he had been reading.

  “How’s the hold?” Yilissa asked when I exited.

  “It is on my to-do list,” I said, sticking my tongue out.

  She said some sly comment, but I was already down and into the coal room. I shoveled in a bit of coal, noting how little it burned for how fast we were going. With everything nominal, I headed toward the front of the ship.

  The boat would dock, unload people, and when they departed, use the front hold for cargo. That went out a side gate ramp that would be attached to the docks. Or so Craig told me while we plotted the mission.

  In my plan, the one we talked about an hour earlier, I should have already checked the cargo. And I forgot after sawing off a foot. The cleaning was therapeutic, but I did leave a vital section of the ship unsecured. I could only hope to do better in the future.

  According to Craig, the Apple took on seven barrels and three pallets meant for Jorni. The goods were supposed to go to Laro after they loaded up more coal from Lornsto. From Laro they would take the two-week trip over land.

  Craig wasn’t allowed to open the goods, nor was it his job to inspect the item. He loaded and delivered as a simple laborer, just like he always had.

  I, however, was very curious as to what those pallets and barrels held. The walk across the drying deck revealed I needed to do a second pass on my cleaning. When I reached the front sunning area, a third cleaning came to mind.

  I readied a .45 before yanking up the hold door. The fact it wasn�
�t disturbed told me I likely wouldn’t find a narock lurking below. I locked the hatch open and descended into the mostly empty storage space.

  “This is a passenger hauler that does frequent trips. I guess it makes sense,” I said to myself.

  I found the first barrel and tipped it. Liquid sloshed inside. I did this for all seven, earning the same result each time. Not a chance in hell was I turning the ship around for ale.

  The first pallet’s netting came off smoothly and I pried a box open. Fine silk folded in neat squares. While someone else may hate this, I loved it. I wanted comfy clothes and a gentle sheet to sleep with.

  The second pallet contained canned fish. I almost turned us around for this find. Almost. I did consider it, but it came back to two things. The others had a decent amount of food and moving the cans with the lobo’narock at the docks seemed too risky.

  When I opened the third pallet, I figured something valuable was inside because the trunks were so big. When I pried one open, I was disappointed. Canvas sails were neatly folded inside each box.

  Silks, fish, and sails. Not too surprising from an ocean town. I went to the first barrel, trying to find any markings and failed. When I rolled it up the ramp and into the sunlight, I read highly flammable, be careful.

  “Well shit. And here I was treating it like it was booze.” I tossed my cigar over the side of the ship. I found a stamp on the side of the barrel. “Oaken Harbour whaling company. Oh, it's whale oil. But there’s no lamps.”

  I tapped my foot, trying to remember if I had seen any lamps in Lorntso. I had noticed them in Laro, but not in Lornsto. If I had to guess, they were expensive, and this solved my dilemma. No point in racing these barrels home without the right way to use the fuel.

  If all went well, when we arrived in Opo, we would find some lamps and more awesome features.

  29

  Snagglewood Day 30

  Opo

  “You sure?” I confirmed with Craig. “Look, that’s your daughter’s sock I put on the steering wheel. Do not forget why we do what we do. I expect to hear you tell me about how much you miss her when we get back.”

  He rolled his eyes. Over the last two days he hated life; even more when I cut off his booze by chucking it in the river. Today was the first day he didn’t howl in agony and for that we were grateful.

  The trip down the river sucked. I slept maybe for four hours during the day. Yilissa slept for the other part of the day, and we kept each other company at night.

  The ship drifted by a few small settlements crawling with narocks. While I wanted to stop and loot, we had an injured man and no way to dock quickly. That changed once we arrived in Opo.

  Opo probably housed a hundred thousand people. The fancy construction, the lighthouse to guide people to the river, and even the docks wowed me. Most of the buildings stood tall, constructed in steel.

  A few of the wooden warehouses near the docks displayed narock sized holes, giving us insight into what they held before the fall of humanity. With Craig being alert, we picked a target to try to pilfer.

  “The city is crawling with narocks,” Craig complained.

  I smiled at this. “I know. I know. But we found a nice warehouse that looked open and held boxes marked with ammunition. We need you to sit at the wheel while we dash in and run out, can you do this?”

  “Yea, I’ve driven Apple a few times. I still think you’re -”

  The world staggered.

  “Something’s wrongggsssss,” I slurred.

  “Very funny,” Yilissa said without remorse.

  My mind swooned and I slammed a foot wide, trying to stay upright.

  I reached out to balance myself and failed.

  “He’s not joking,” Yilissa said with a squeak.

  I tried to halt my sudden fall by raising my arms in time, but my body failed me.

  I crashed face first into the floor and everything went black.

  ∞∞∞

  The hiss of my cryopod confused me. There should have been a prompt or some kind of notice. The fog in my brain floated so thickly I thought I had drowned.

  I stumbled out of my life-supporting unit and vomited a belly-full of yellow bile.

  A shadowy frame approached with lethal speed. I tried to react to the blur, barely getting my arms up. A hand shot forward punching so hard, the impact felt like it drove into my chest.

  The fog stayed, nothing made sense, but by Zeus’ hairy tits, I felt a mix of pain and anger. A wave of sensations returned to my body with a slight lifting of the mind fog.

  I lashed out, grabbing my assailant. With all my might, I tugged forward, and smashed a head-butt into my attacker. I wanted his face but nailed his upper body.

  Crack!

  My forehead cratered his chest, and I was fairly certain I broke some bones.

  “Barry… Barry, we have to go,” a concerned voice said. “The dampers have been detected. Stop standing there. Barry, we have to go.”

  Barry struggled to breathe, shaking his head as if it would fix his problems. The jerk reached to my chest and pulled out a knife I didn’t realize he planted there.

  “Argggg!” I cried out.

  In a short span, I staggered and crumpled face first against the floor again. With an agonizing effort, I rolled over, finding myself in my father’s room.

  Barry may have retrieved his knife, but it clattered off the metal decking not long after. As my vision cleared, I saw that he was in a world of hurt. His plight almost helped me cope with the fact I was dying.

  Dying, and not in the Trials where I respawned.

  The clanks of metal crashing against metal grew louder and more violent in their collisions

  The other assailant shrieked in terror at whatever neared. “Oh shit, Barry, run! This shouldn’t be poss -”

  Zap!

  Barry tried to leave, resting a hand on a cryo unit instead to steady himself. The man’s knees wobbled, and he gulped in a lungful of air.

  A mechanical droid entered the room, raised a stun gun, and blasted Barry.

  Zap!

  I watched Barry’s body twitch, unable to cope with the damage. His eyes sealed shut and his breathing slowed into a repeating process, telling me he lived.

  The robot’s voice box squelched before saying, “This is not Barry. His real name is Landon Green. An anti-AI supporter and recently had contact with…” Darcy paused as if computing. “Councilwoman Olivia is currently ranked fifty-seventh out of the one hundred members. Interesting. The woman has computing skills that I did not predict.”

  The robot hovered over me while I coughed out blood.

  Life as I knew it was over. My body fought and my mind fought with it. Some hidden force told me to just give up and die. I rejected that power like the evil incarnation it was.

  The robot extended an arm, dripping mercury out of a port. The metal splashed into the hole in my chest.

  After the robot left, I waited, waited some more, and about five minutes after dying on the inside, I started to improve.

  Ten minutes later and a series of combat droids collected my two attackers. Droids that were so rare to be seen, I honestly thought they didn’t exist.

  I tried to rationalize what happened and while the obvious was there, I didn’t comprehend the why. Worse, no one came to help me. I just laid there while the nanobots repaired my injury.

  If I had been logged into the medical bay, I’d have already recovered.

  Barry and his body vanished while I kicked on the floor in suffering. Darcy clearly didn’t think I needed help even if it felt like I did. The pain subsided about half an hour later and I couldn’t help but rationalize what happened.

  I’d been stabbed in the heart.

  A murder in the fleet was rare. They happened, but who the hell would want to kill me. Dark and jaded thoughts consumed me as I healed. Thoughts of revenge and making the assholes pay swam in my mind until I tampered down on the raw anger.

  I would need my wits about me.
I focused on ignoring the pain while preparing my mind for what came next.

  An hour later, I sat up, alone in my room with a pile of vomit. The puddle of blood that should be under me, had been retrieved by the nanites to restore my blood amounts.

  With a grunt, I rose to my feet. I popped my jaw, cracked my neck, and headed for the showers.

  “What the f… hell was that, Darcy?” I asked in dismay. “You could have taken me to the medical bay for pain killers.”

  “I wanted to but… Sometimes it is best to be a disappointing figure. That was someone burning their one time use of a trick to bypass my sensors. They revealed a lot by attacking you. I don’t want to do the same thing. All pain killers are tracked and if you enter the medical bay, I can’t doctor those documents. As far as anyone knows, you never took a dagger to your heart,” Darcy said.

  I rubbed my chest, feeling an angry bump over the knife’s entry point.

  “I should have died,” I muttered.

  “Yes. Even your smaller backup heart would have given up without the increased infusion of nanites. Good thing I had a special monitor on your pod. Which, I should have expected something, just… Every few years they get creative.

  “I let the anti-factions have their plots and schemes, Otherwise, I would lock them all up. This always boils down to - do I become the tyrant or the sage leader who shows mercy. And I hate to admit it. I’m scared Theo,” Darcy said.

  I snickered, shaking my head as I walked through the halls.

  “Save it for someone who’ll believe that load of bullshit. Where did you take those two?” I asked.

  “They will be tried for tampering with the systems of Hope. They never stabbed you, and you never took a dagger to the heart,” Darcy said.

  I turned down the white halls for the showers. A translucent barrier said, ‘deep cleaning’, preventing another person from walking towards me. Darcy was keeping my trip to the showers a secret.

  “What is going on?” I asked.