Defiance of the Fall: A LitRPG Adventure

by TheFirstDefier

  He stood behind the bar, which he was cleaning with a rag, looking very much the part. The man was British from the sound of it, and it looked like this town was truly from somewhere in England, as it was the same with the guards.

  Zac walked over and sat down on a barstool in front of him.

  “What can I get for you?” the man asked, looking neither excited or bored.

  “Information,” Zac simply said as he placed a few crystals on the counter in front of the bartender.

  The barkeep’s eyes slightly widened, and he quickly swiped up the crystals with the rag, quickly hiding them from view.

  “You’d better be careful of flaunting your wealth, young man,” the bartender said with a serious face. “You’re obviously new to town, so I’ll warn you to not stick out. Safety isn’t one of the strong points of Fort Roger.”

  “I understand. I have been traveling looking for my hometown, and need some information. I need to know if a pattern of how the world was reshuffled has been found.” Zac spoke with a low voice.

  “Have you been hiding under a rock all this time? Well, in any case, it’s all random, from what I’ve heard. I’m from northern England, but the next town over is mainly American. No one knows what’s going on. From what I understand, a few governments are working together trying to get order back, but I’ll believe it when I see it,” the man said with a scoff. “How are they going to enforce order when people suddenly are able to shoot fireballs and run around like supermen? Never thought Armageddon would look like this.”

  Zac sighed at the answer. He at least hoped there was some discernible pattern to the randomization, but it seemed it was too much to ask for. At least the governments were trying to get things under control. He somewhat agreed with the bartender’s assessment, but the information also provided some hope.

  Perhaps the government had some means to map out the world. Maybe there were satellites still in orbit, or at least they could communicate by radio. There were many emergency contingencies in place in case of war or the like. Obviously, nothing could have prepared the countries for the System arriving, but they might have figured some things out by now.

  “Is this town under the British government?” he asked, hoping to get in touch with an official.

  “Pah, what government? This town is run by Roger, a cultivator. Most towns don’t have any affiliation to any government; they are just run by whoever has the biggest fist,” the barkeep said with a low voice. “However, a town called Fairfield is a week’s journey from here. I haven’t gone myself due to the danger, but I hear that it’s quite a large town. And supposedly, there are some government people from the United States there. They might know more.

  “You were quite generous, so I’ll warn you. You should probably leave here sooner than later. Travelers usually have a tough time here,” he said as he made an almost indiscernible nod with his head toward a few of the tables.

  “Why are people still here? This place looks a bit…” Zac said as he hesitated how to finish the sentence, but the bartender understood what he meant and sighed.

  “The road to Fairfield has large packs of monsters above level 20. Very few dare to go that way without pushing through with a car. There’s also talk of even stronger pack leaders roving about. But Roger has most of the cars and all the petrol, so it’s better to stay here and eke out a living.”

  Zac was about to ask something else, but a loud ruckus outside interrupted him. A loud crash and a few angry roars bled into the bar, whose customers slightly perked up. A young girl’s scream came next, and the bartender sighed again with sadness in his eyes.

  “It looks like they found her.”

  “Found who?” Zac asked curiously.

  “You should have seen the two bodies out on the gate? The scream probably came from their daughter,” the bartender answered with some disgust on his face as he continued with a low voice. “Roger took a liking to the young girl, but the parents tried to sneak her out of town. Truly a miserable family.”

  Zac’s eyebrows scrunched together, somewhat unsure of what to do. He wasn’t some hero saving the damsel in distress. But could he just watch these things happen with a clean conscience, knowing he could help?

  It didn’t take long for him to decide. He couldn’t save the world, but he at least he could save this girl, and only pray someone would do the same for his family in case it came to that. He got to his feet and turned toward the door. The bartender tried to signal him to stop, but he only answered with a wave as he walked toward the ruckus.

  99

  Emily

  As Zac stepped out of the bar, he saw that there was already a small crowd gathering. After a quick glance, it was clear that no one was there to help, but rather to watch a show. All the noise came from three grimy-looking men who’d cornered a kid.

  The men all had somewhat matching clothes, with a large uneven R patch sewn to their chest. It looked like the leader of the town truly wanted to set himself up as a medieval lord, already making his underlings wear a crest. Zac shook his head and looked toward the inner part of the town, where another wall was erected. That should be the residence of this Roger and his cronies.

  One of the men was bleeding freely from his head, and the glass shards on the ground around him explained what had happened.

  “You little BITCH! After Roger gets tired of you, I’ll fucking feed you to the dogs!” the bleeding man roared at their cornered prey.

  It took Zac a few seconds to realize that the kid was actually a small girl somewhere in her teens. She wore wretched-looking rags for clothes, and her face was caked in dirt apart from a few tear streaks drawing clear lines along her cheeks. Even her hair was a mess, and it looked like she or someone else had randomly cut most of it off with a knife.

  The teenager was holding the remains of a bottle as a weapon and ferociously stared at the three men. The outlook didn’t look good, as two of them took out daggers as they approached her while the last man stood at the ready. Zac sighed and used [Eye of Discernment] on the group, and saw that the girl was named Emily.

  She didn’t even have a level yet, which meant that she was too young to start using the System. The other three were around level 15 to 17, weaklings in Zac’s eyes but perhaps strong according to the level of this town. Certainly, for a young girl without any powers, it was a futile struggle.

  “WHO IS SPYING ON US?” the third man without a knife roared as he glared in Zac’s direction.

  Zac rolled his eyes as he stepped out from the group of people. He really needed to get a better inspection skill. Anyone with Intelligence above 15 points would be able to sense his scan, above 30 and they’d know it was him. Apparently, the homeless-looking man actually focused on Intelligence, which was a bit surprising.

  “Wanting to play the hero? Or maybe you just want her for yourself, eh? In either case, you’d better fuck right off,” the bleeding man said.

  Zac shook his head as he wondered how people could devolve to this stage after just a few months. Were the laws and fear of punishment the only things that held some people back before the integration?

  “You’d better turn back right now–” one of the men said, but threw his dagger at Zac’s head mid-sentence in an attempt to ambush him.

  Zac couldn’t even be bothered to respond, and he simply caught the dagger in midair as he released his aura. Screams of panic immediately erupted as the onlookers frenetically tried to back away. He held the knife in his hand, still unsure of how to act.

  “Don’t move, or I’ll kill the brat!” one of the men said as he grabbed the girl, who had lost focus due to Zac’s aura. He was deathly pale, and his whole body was shaking in horror as he maniacally stared at Zac.

  Zac frowned and threw the dagger with a quick motion. It tore through the air and punched into the head of the man holding the girl hostage. The force of the throw was so great that his head burst like a watermelon, instantly killing him.

  Next, Zac took out
one of his regular axes from his pouch and charged up a [Chop]. The other two ruffians didn’t even have time to react or scream before two headless corpses fell down on the ground. A large tear was rent through a house as well from Zac’s lightning-quick swings, and it looked like it would collapse at any second.

  Zac walked over to the girl, who now was drenched in the man’s blood. She still had the bottle in her hand, and though she looked scared of Zac, she didn’t flinch. Zac’s impression of this girl was far better compared to the castaways on his island.

  “Let’s go,” was the only thing he said to her as he controlled his aura and turned toward the central area of Fort Roger. But he only had time to take three steps before the bartender stopped him.

  “Wait, young man! I understand you’re angry, but please don’t do anything drastic. If you kill Roger and his henchmen, then most of the people in this town will perish from the animals.”

  That made Zac stop in his tracks, and after some hesitation, he turned around and started walking toward the gate instead with some sadness in his eyes.

  There wasn’t anything left to do here. Information in a hovel like this was limited, and he’d have to travel to Fairfield in order to find out more. This Roger fellow might know more, but he had a feeling that going to visit him would only result in battle and more death.

  He wasn’t sure how to deal with people like Roger. Obviously, they were scum, but they were also the ones who kept civilians safe, just as the bartender said. There were even level 1 wastrels still surviving to this date in Fort Roger, and that was mostly thanks to Roger.

  In his anger, he hadn’t thought about the consequences, but he wasn’t ready to support this whole town. He just had no way to migrate a whole town through the forest and through the teleporter in time before the next wave started. And it wasn’t like he could afford it in any case, since each activation cost a bunch of Nexus Crystals.

  It wouldn’t help to build his own teleporter here for the same reason, not that he was ready to waste that many crystals on these people even if he could. The wolf waves had tapped almost all his remaining crystals, and he wasn’t about to spend another 10 million Nexus Coins on a teleporter. He needed that money to ready himself for the second wave.

  He’d learned from Selas during their walk that villages regularly were beset by beasts. It wasn’t to the point of his own beast waves, but there could be hundreds of frenzied animals who heedlessly charged at the villages. Selas believed it was the work of the System, and Zac agreed.

  But still, leaving like this gave a bad taste in his mouth, and his monstrous aura once again flared out. He turned back around and supercharged another Cosmic Energy edge, bringing it to over ten meters. With an echoing roar, he unleashed the edge right toward the inner wall in the distance.

  As it traveled, it destroyed the paved road, creating a huge scar that ran right through the village. It smashed through the rudimentary gate, leaving only wood chippings in its wake. Finally, when the blade was only twenty meters away from the mansion, the blade winked out of existence.

  “Deliver this message to Roger. I will return through this area shortly, and if I find him still acting like some wannabe warlord, I will judge him and all his henchmen. Let my strike be the reminder,” Zac said with a loud voice empowered with Cosmic Energy. His huge aura was still billowing out, forcing people to back away or go down on their knees, and the visage of his swing would likely follow these townspeople for the rest of their lives.

  All the villagers of Fort Roger quickly got out of the way as he once again retracted his aura and walked away. Their faces were white with terror, and they didn’t even dare to look up. Some shuffling from behind told him that the girl had decided to follow him.

  Soon they were at the gate with Emily’s parents hung up. And for the first time, he heard the girl speak up.

  “Please… please help me take them down,” a weak voice came from behind him, and he turned around to see tears pooling in her eyes.

  Zac wordlessly started to charge [Chop] again, preparing to cut down the two.

  “HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” one of the guards shouted and ran toward Zac.

  With the bartender’s words echoing in his mind, Zac felt no need to keep killing, and only lightly slapped the man to knock him unconscious. The other guards only fearfully stared in the distance, not daring to approach.

  He charged up [Chop] to a five-meter edge, and with two lightning-quick swings, the whole part of the wall that held the two bodies was cut down. Zac freed the two corpses, simply ripping apart the chains that held them. Then with a nod toward the girl, he walked toward the forest with the two bodies under his arms.

  The remaining guards mutely stared at Zac’s back and the ruined gate, unsure what to do. Soon one of them ran toward the large mansion on the other side of the town.

  After a few minutes of walking, Zac felt confident that no one was planning on following them, so he placed the two bodies down on the ground then put them into his Cosmos Sack.

  “What did you do?!” the girl asked, aghast, seeing the bodies of her parents simply vanish.

  She pointed the shattered glass bottle she still carried at him.

  “I placed them in a magic bag,” Zac answered as he started to take off his shoes.

  She hesitated a bit, then put down her makeshift weapon.

  “Why didn’t you kill Roger as well? He is much worse than the ones you killed,” she asked in an almost accusatory tone.

  “I am not sure more good than evil would come from me doing that,” Zac said as he glanced at her. He held the shoes, which were now caked in all kinds of things from walking through Fort Roger, and simply chucked them into the woods with some disgust. He’d rather get new ones than put these defiled ones back on.

  Emily hesitated a bit before she gritted her teeth and started to undress.

  “As long as you kill him, you can do whatever you want with me,” she said with her eyes reddening.

  Zac’s eyebrows rose, and using [Loamwalker], he almost teleported in front of her and flicked her forehead.

  “Don’t be stupid. Keep your clothes on,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “I’m not interested in little kids.”

  “I’m fifteen,” she said defensively, but she still started to put on her clothes while blushing a bit.

  “That Roger isn’t very strong. If you want him killed, just work hard and kill him yourself,” Zac said. “I am not some mercenary who goes around killing people. I have my own problems to deal with.”

  “Then help me get strong! I’ve never heard of anyone being as powerful as you, and I’ve been to multiple cities,” Emily asked, a burning desire in her eyes.

  Zac had initially planned on dumping the girl in Winterleaf Village before heading back, but something in her eyes made Zac change his mind. He guessed that Alyn had her first student for the Academy.

  “Why have you been to multiple cities? Traveling is pretty dangerous,” he said.

  “I have a big brother and a big sister. Both are cultivators. They disappeared right from our home. We looked around but couldn’t find them. After a little over a month, we heard about the Tutorial, but the cultivators didn’t return to our city. We guessed that they were dropped off somewhere else,” she explained. “We decided to look for them, so we have traveled looking for them for a few months and arrived at Fort Roger a week ago.”

  She didn’t continue from there, but Zac could guess the rest of the story from her eyes once again reddening. He sighed and wondered how many people had died trying to find their family members or trying to get back home. The world was fraught with danger, and the incursions and monsters might not even be the worst ones. Humanity had always been its own worst enemy.

  “I can take you with me to my town. However, that place is extremely far away, and you will not be able to look for your siblings if you do. Where I live is very dangerous, but you can get stronger there. It’s up to you to choose your path,” Zac
said as he looked at the teenager.

  Emily only hesitated a few seconds before she looked at him with determination. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Okay. Then jump up on my back,” Zac said as he turned his back to her.

  “What?” she asked with a flabbergasted face.

  Zac had already decided to head back to Port Atwood after this small excursion. There were five days left until the next part of the beast waves, and he wasn’t sure he’d make it to Fairfield and back within that timeframe. He felt it was more worthwhile to go back and increase his power with his remaining E-grade Crystals.

  Besides, Emily seemed to have visited multiple towns, and she might have even more answers compared to the barkeep or Roger. All in all, he was happy with the result of this expedition. He even got a nifty map and, more importantly, the magical token.

  “Come on, jump up,” Zac repeated as he hunched down a bit. Walking with an unevolved human in tow would waste far too much time, so he would have to carry her. Since he wanted his arms free in case of an attack, she’d have to climb up on his back.

  She hesitated a bit before she climbed up with a slight blush on her face. As soon as she put her arms around his neck, he walked off with his usual speed.

  A shriek echoed through the forest as Zac strolled through with the speed of a runaway train.

  100

  Travel Companions

  Zac stopped for the night at a small clearing and let Emily down from his back. Even the fading light couldn’t hide the fact that her face was deathly pale. Moving almost at the speed of a car through dense forest on the back of another human was apparently quite jarring, and Zac had been forced to stop a few times to let the girl take a breather.

  There were many things he wanted to ask the teenager about the Tutorial and society after the fall, but he didn’t want to push her either. They’d buried her parents in a beautiful glade just a few hours ago, and she hadn’t said anything since then. There wasn’t any ceremony, with Zac simply using a broadsword to rip open a hole in the ground where he placed the two together. Since the bodies were naked, he first placed a cover over them before he refilled the grave.