“You dare try to bribe me?” the guard spit, drawing his weapon.
Lucian paused and went to the menu, cycling until he got to the crafting option.
He had to smile at the fact that he was about to be assaulted by these two guards, yet he still had time to craft a weapon.
He loved playing games, especially RPGs, but this part of gameplay always amused him. Here he was, mid-attack, and he’s sitting there trying to craft up a weapon and add some powers to it.
Luckily, he’d been saving some precious metals and some Skill Points to eventually create something, and now seemed like a perfect time.
“Hell yeah,” Lucian said as he scrolled through his crafting options.
Sure enough, he had the option to create a scythe, which he quickly crafted, infusing it with a glass bottle of Dragon’s blood that he had taken off a random encounter and adding some gemstones he picked up on a different quest. In the end, he had a pretty awesome scythe, one that had +10 attack power and a 20% chance to evade an attack from a one-handed weapon.
As soon as he cycled back out of the menu, his scythe appeared in his hands and Lucian swung it at the guard.
The other one charged him; Lucian managed to blow him back with a gust of wind from his left hand, allowing him to focus on the first combatant.
It was a video game, so real-world physics had already been lit aflame, stomped out, shit on, scooped into the trash bin and thrown out a top floor window from the Burj Khalifa, but the game developers had done a pretty good job of adjusting how an avatar fought depending on which weapon they had.
Lucian assumed that the developers decided to give the scythe a fighting style similar to that of a spear, noticing that he was mostly jabbing at the guard rather than taking big swings at him.
But pulling down hard on the left-hand joystick allowed him to actually do a spin, using the full potential of the blade.
“Here we go, here we go,” Lucian said, nodding as his avatar killed the first guard.
A dialogue started up, Lucian able to offer the second guard the option of keeping his life or dying.
The second guard acquiesced, sheathing his sword and taking a knee in front of Lucian.
“What would you have me do?” he asked.
Lucian selected the “Tell me about the chalice” option, and the guard offered to take him to it.
“Don’t worry about the owner of the place, David of Willmarth is at the Parsneau Pub,” the guard said as they left the dead guard lying at the entrance to the city of Karonyoff.
Lucian smirked at this, imagining what this would look like in real life.
“He usually doesn’t get back to his home until late, and that’s if he doesn’t crash at Dean the Beard’s home. Dean the Beard is known across the kingdoms for his beard and his absolutely fantastic bacon.”
Lucian pressed the X button to speed up the dialogue. He had noticed several times now that some of the NPCs’ dialogue in Zero Enigma was often non sequitur, if not downright absurd.
He stopped speeding up the dialogue once they came to a two-story home with a couple of barrels in front of it.
“I give you David of Willmarth’s home,” the guard said. “Hey, if you happen to see or hear any goblins in there, let me know. There are rumors that Willmarth runs a goblin smuggling ring. The woman next door claims that she hears giddy screaming and scary flatulence several nights a week, but I have not been able to independently verify that bit of information.”
Lucian chuckled. “Were the writers high when they wrote this?” he asked himself as the guard stepped aside, letting Lucian approach the door. It wasn’t very difficult to pick the lock, and his avatar was in Willmarth’s home in a matter of moments.
He headed straight to the bedroom to rifle through the dressers and nightstands. He saw a trunk at the end of the bed and opened it to find the chalice, the item’s name rimmed in gold to let him know that this was what the dungeon wanted.
He was just about to reenter the main room when a cut scene started up, the door opening and David of Willmarth drunkenly stumbling into the home. “Bacon beard, beard of bacon, beers for all, beers and bacon, family is gone, eat some bacon, drink some beers and eat some bacon!” He paused, drawing his weapon. “Who’s there?”
And for a moment, Lucian figured he would just engage the man with the scythe. But then Willmarth turned in the opposite direction, toward the kitchen of his home.
Lucian realized that this was supposed to be a stealth escape or kill type of mission, and while he could have made it out of the home without being spotted, he figured that Willmarth could have some loot worth taking.
Then again, killing him may cause other issues for Lucian in the future.
That was one thing he liked about Zero Enigma. You really never knew when killing someone would come back to haunt you.
To loot or to kill?
Now that was the goddamn question.
Lucian weighed this important decision for a moment.
He figured he could create a save record just in case something bad happened once he took Willmarth out. After creating a save record, he put his scythe away and went for his dagger.
He snuck into the other room, hiding beside the door as Willmarth came back into the main living space.
Lucian lunged for the man, bringing his blade to Willmarth’s neck and killing him.
A skull icon and a dark piano tone let him know that he had done something that was akin to generating negative karma.
“Guards! Guards!” Dean the Beard stood in the open doorway, screaming and pointing at Lucian. “Guards!”
The city guards came running, none of them the same guy that he’d convinced to join him earlier. They quickly overwhelmed him, Lucian doing his best to fight them off but eventually dying.
He reappeared outside the city, all of his items stripped from him, his money missing.
“And that, my friends, is what the save record was for.” Lucian reloaded his previous record, with the plan to sneak out of Willmarth’s home this time rather than kill him.
Chapter Thirteen: Yoshimi and Pachinko
The first thing Lucian did when he woke up the next morning was check his phone to see if his brother had responded.
He hadn’t.
Of course, he hadn’t. His email was still in the draft folder.
The second thing he did was start researching Kyoto.
He recalled his friend Jason Hamilton mentioning in his eulogy that Lucian had always wanted to go to Japan. He figured that he would go there today, to do some hunting on the other side of the world, just to get away for a while.
After a bit of research, he settled on the Gion District, mostly because he thought it would be an interesting location, but also because he saw an article saying that this was the geisha district.
And Lucian felt like being a tourist.
He pressed his thumb and pinky together, and his form took shape on top of a rooftop overlooking a quaint canal. It was night, and red paper lanterns hung over the canal.
Lucian floated over toward one of the red lamps, eventually dropping down onto the cobblestone street. There were a few tourists about, and as he made his way down the path he noticed a small bar open on his right. The details of two men sitting out front appeared before him.
Name: Masayoshi Yamashita
Date of Birth: 02/27/1978
Date of Death: 08/22/2027
Name: Minoru Niihara
Date of Birth: 11/18/1983
Date of Death: 09/15/2086
Lucian nodded, impressed that the second guy was going to live to be almost a hundred and three.
He moved on, his scythe taking shape in his hand. He spun it once but didn’t do it again, this weird feeling coming to him that someone was watching him.
Lucian paused, taking a quick look around to see if anything caught his eye.
Once he was sure he was alone he continued on his way.
Eventually, he weaved hi
s way out of the neighborhood, not yet seeing any geishas, and made his way onto a main street that was filled with shops and convenience stores where he found a few restaurants with intimate seating. Lucian wished he had visited this place while he was alive.
How hard would it have been?
Then again, Lucian never really had a lot of money, so pulling off the trip to Japan may have actually been difficult. There was a time in his early twenties when it could have happened when he had run into a little money from working overtime at a warehouse on the outskirts of Boston. But that would have caused some issues between Kate and him, so he ended up spending the money on her instead.
Lucian turned back to the neighborhood, floating through the houses and seeing how the Japanese people lived.
He usually stuck to the main thoroughfares when he floated aimlessly, occasionally using rooftops to move around. But moving through people’s houses, one after another, was an entirely unique experience.
Even though this wasn’t his culture, Lucian could understand what they were saying to each other, or what was playing on the television. He listened as a mother and son discussed his day at school, the father still at work.
Floating into a hostel, Lucian found a pair of French tourists having sex in their room, a bottle of sake lying on its side. “Do you love me? Do you love me?” the woman asked as she looked down at the man, her hands on his chest, her nipples erect.
“With my entire heart,” he said, and the woman moaned.
Lucian continued along his way.
Eventually, he came to a place that had geishas. One of the women was sitting next to a man who was enjoying a cup of tea, the man focused on just a small sliver of her wrist that was visible, the woman in complete control.
Lucian ignored their death dates as he continued into another home where he found an older woman kneeling in front of her family altar, speaking to her dead parents.
“If only you knew how little they could hear you,” Lucian whispered, dropping his hand under her head, his fingers passing right through her.
He still couldn’t get over that.
Whether Old Death wanted to admit it or not, Lucian was no better than a ghost.
Eventually, he floated across the main street and found several bars and hotels all clustered together along a back alley.
He passed into an establishment where a woman paid a man for him to keep her company. Lucian listened to the conversation for a moment, the man flirting with the older woman, offering to fill her drink, complimenting her taste and her style. The woman promised that she would visit in a week after a trip to London for business, that she would bring him a gift.
Lucian saw a parasite on the woman, one that he had never seen before, purple with yellow splotches and dozens of lips across its back. He checked her details, and saw that she wasn’t anywhere near her Date of Death.
Name: Kazu Makino
Date of Birth: 12/31/1969
Date of Death: 04/20/2054
After watching the parasite for a moment, Lucian equipped his Glock and brought it to the side of what he thought was the parasite’s head and fired a couple of shots.
Nothing.
He lowered his weapon, watching as the handsome young male continued to compliment the woman, the parasite’s body twitching with delight.
Floating back outside, Lucian saw a couple of older Japanese people shuffling into a building lit up with bright lights, sliding glass doors beckoning them in.
“Pachinko?” Lucian said as he looked at the sign.
He moved to find a slew of Japanese people sitting on stools in front of beeping machines. Something about it reminded him of Vegas, yet it was different, not typical slot machines.
There were dozens of parasites in here, most of them black and shriveled, with no eyes. He also noticed a few of the multi-legged parasites that Lucian could actually kill, the ones with the peach-colored skin.
Fat ones too.
And just as he equipped his scythe, a few eyes rose off their backs.
Lucian shot forward.
He brought his weapon back and used its weight to spin his legs around, where he pressed off one of the machines and narrowly avoided a spiked tentacle.
He hit the ground in a crouch, using his full standing force to fire off a blast of energy at the larger parasite on the left, sending it crashing into one of the machines.
Oddly enough, the black parasites, still attached to some of the people playing pachinko, were as oblivious as their hosts, not even flinching as Lucian cut through two razor-sharp tentacles.
A fist slammed into the back of his head and sent Lucian straight to the tile, where his chin left a small crater.
He kicked out of the way just in time to avoid a giant stinger from one of the parasites with a body covered in hairy feelers. The stinger spit acid at Lucian that burned through his clothing, his skin sizzling.
Even as his skin burned, Lucian went for his MX-11 and fired shots at the parasite as he ran toward the wall.
He jumped just in time to avoid another stinger from a different parasite, jogging sideways as he tried to get his bearings, as he tried to focus on taking down just one at a time.
There were four of them actively engaging him now, with a fifth on the periphery.
He would need to take them out individually rather than keep trying to fight them all off at the same time. While he may be strong enough in the future to simply take them all at once, Lucian knew he needed to thin the herd.
He moved along the outskirts of the room, only one of the tentacles chasing him now. Lucian doubled back around and fired several shots at the parasite.
Charging forward again, he focused all of his energy into his legs and delivered a point-blank shot right into the back of the parasite, its body exploding just as the stinger from another parasite struck Lucian in the shoulder.
An energy poured into him as he brought his arm back and placed his hand on the wound, healing it, and feeling just a small amount of his power drain.
He knew he still had plenty of juice left, but if he could keep healing himself as he took them out one by one, he’d likely make it through the fight. Thinking of his SP caused his stats to flash on his pane of vision, where he noted that he’d definitely killed one of them.
Lucian went for his scythe again as two pulsing limbs sprang toward him. Using his scythe’s blade as a pole vault pole, Lucian launched over both of the tentacles.
He spun quickly, bringing his weapon around him and slicing through several of the tentacles and one of the parasite’s stingers. Twisting around, Lucian drove his scythe into its back, channeling energy into the weapon that exploded the creature, a bright light pouring into him.
He skipped away just in time to avoid the outstretched arm of a parasite to his right.
His scythe disappeared and Lucian went for his grenade launcher.
He was just about to pump two grenades into its open mouth when a tentacle latched onto his face from behind.
The tentacle ballooned in size, quickly swallowing Lucian’s head all the way down to his neck. Razor-sharp teeth pressed into Lucian’s skull as he tried to fight it off, as more tentacles grabbed his arms and pulled him back.
No…
He tried to touch his thumb and his pinky together but he couldn’t, one of the tentacles now wrapping around his hand, and breaking his fingers. The teeth sawed into the flesh of his face; he could feel them dig into his cheeks, scrape his teeth. Lucian was panicking, unable to move.
He fired his grenade launcher at his own feet, somehow severing the tentacle that was wrapped around his head.
More parasites latched onto him, another going for his head and biting down even harder now. He felt a sharp pang in his chest as a stinger jabbed into his body, and a group of tentacles tried to pull him to the ground.
“Stand still!” Lucian heard a woman shout, and even in the darkness, he knew that whatever was standing before him was incredibly powerful.
The parasites hissed as their bodies were torn apart.
The tentacles wrapped around Lucian’s body loosened, and more parasites shrieked. He gained usage of his hand again and pulled a lump of parasite off his face, tossing it to the ground.
Standing before Lucian was a woman who almost resembled a geisha dressed as the Grim Reaper.
Chapter Fourteen: Obscure Parasites
Lucian fell to one knee, his stats flashing before him and letting him know that he’d used a lot of energy.
How he had expended so much in so little time could only be explained by the parasite that had latched onto him, Lucian finally understanding what it would be like to be overpowered by the creatures. Old Death had warned him about how they would keep a reaper alive until injuresouls came, and now he appreciated exactly what that entailed.
“You are weak,” the woman said as she floated down to Lucian, tendrils from her robes reaching toward him.
The two disappeared, their bodies reforming in a small room with paper walls.
The woman’s robes gently placed Lucian on a pillow, where he was able to sit. A small table swirled into existence before him, and the woman took a seat at the opposite end of the table.
She had Asian features and her skin was a pale moon white, her hair up in a bun, her lips an intense shade of red. Everything about her seemed expertly put together, her dark blue and black robe expertly crafted. There was something majestic about the way she sat, a solemn expression on her face that spawned a sense of sadness within Lucian.
“You’re a Death?” he asked, trying to get a sense of his surroundings. The thin walls allowed for some light to come into the room. There was also a large window opening up into a small sanctuary garden with a single large tree in its middle, its limbs curled in a way that reminded Lucian of the tentacles of a parasite.
The woman nodded. “What is your name?”
“Lucian. Yours?”
“Yoshimi,” she said, as two small teacups appeared on the table as well as a piping hot kettle with steam billowing from its spout. The china was made from glowing porcelain, decorated with a blue-and-white flower motif.
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