Chapter 94: Ruthless & Chapter 95: The Purge Tutorial (Patreon)

Author's Note: When calculating the new stat sheet changes, I realized that the tactician trial reward of 35 levels was a little too high, so I've dropped it down to 25.

There will be one more chapter (an epilogue) before it's on to book 2!

Revised June 9, 2024

Logan persuaded the Cursed Rope to revert to its inert form and then willed it inside his spatial collar.

There was nothing Logan would like more than to jam the last True Grit Ring onto his finger, but Asthea took priority first. She’d been forgotten in the fight and was still lying on the floor, an alarming pool of blood underneath her limp body.

Logan picked up the True Grit Ring and threw it into his spatial collar before rushing over.

“Asthea?”

For a second, dread welled up in his stomach. She was too lifeless, stiff like a corpse, her long hair crusted with dried blood. But then he saw the faint movement of her chest as she struggled to get air. Arsen had wrapped her injury in thick, odd-looking bandages, but her face was pale, her lips bloodless. Next to her side, her intact hand spasmed like a doctor had jabbed a reflex hammer into a nerve, and her eyes moved underneath her eyelids as if she were dreaming.

Logan took a deep breath. During the fight and after losing his first encounter with the guards, his guilt had evaporated. His culpability in her injury had been irrelevant when compared with his own death.

But looking at her now, Logan felt guilt gnawing at his insides. Asthea had been a champion for him up until the end, encouraging the guards to disregard the Cursed Rope and to give him a chance. Logan had repaid that kindness by taking her arm. It hadn’t been at his direction—the rope had gone on a rabid strength grabbing spree—but without Logan, this never would have happened.

It would be like telling a loved one, oops, yeah, I shouldn’t have brought that gun to the picnic. But it wasn’t my fault! It had a faulty safety switch; it was the gun’s fault for going off! And worse yet, Asthea didn’t have [Regenerate] and her constitution attribute was barely keeping up.

Logan crouched next to her, his knees plopping into a pool of lukewarm blood. Hesitating, hovering, he finally rested his hands against her good shoulder.

“Asthea?”

No response.

Fuck. Was she going to die?

Killing the Silverdagger Clan was just; they had it coming and it was kill or be killed. Logan had learned a lesson in that fight. He had to be brutal to survive. However, there was a difference between killing men who were actively trying to kill him and a woman who was on death’s door. Asthea would be… well, upset would be putting it mildly when she learned what he’d done to her guards, but Logan would rather live with that than knowing that he could have helped her and had done nothing.

In a way, Asthea reminded him of Lara. Lara had clawed a life for herself after her divorce; she was resourceful, smart, and didn’t take any shit. Least of all from Logan. She wanted to succeed, to climb up the career ladder but at the same time, support her children. Numerous times, she’d lamented that Logan had the ‘protective brother syndrome,’ insisting that she could do it all.

Asthea’s drive to succeed reminded him of Lara. And Lara would kick him for thinking this, since Asthea could hold her own against any man in a fight, but he felt protective of her. It would be unthinkable to not help.

But how?

If the guards had a magic marble that would heal her injuries, they would have used it.

She needed a skill like [Regenerate] to help. Based on Asthea’s reaction after Logan had walked away from the dexterity trial, shrugging off missing chunks of flesh from the insects, his skill was way beyond a normal constitution stat. He had no way to quantify how much constitution a person needed to receive the equivalent version of [Regenerate], but it must be a whole heck of a lot. If only there was a way for her to level up her constitution.

Wait.

His nerves alive with sudden hope, Logan clambered to his feet and made his way over to the splattered chicken egg. The System had said there were two rewards—one for first place, one for second. If Asthea received first place, that was 25 extra levels—125 points! And if she placed second, she’d still receive 5 levels. Surely that would be enough to level her constitution and help her?

But would it work with a broken egg?

It had to.

The walls of the room were seamless, no exit anywhere. Nothing had changed since he’d defeated the guards. To finish the last tactician trial, there had to be a way to end it.

Logan gathered the gooey mess including the cracked eggshell and cupped it in his palm.

Holding up his hand with the egg white drizzling, he looked up at the ceiling. “System, I’ve captured the egg.”

Ding!

[Calculating leaderboard score for user Idiot!]

[Calculating…]

[…]

[..]

[….]

[Score calculated!]

[Leadership: 4000/ Tactical Innovation: 3800/Strategy: 2110/Victory: 1.]

[…100 penalty points in effect for a broken egg deposit!]

[Leaderboard updated!]

Trial Leaderboard

1.     Idiot – 9,811

2.     Asthea Silverdagger – 9,808

3.     Arsen Silverdagger – 8,571

4.     Errol Silverdagger – 7,501

5.     Thorin Silverdagger -1,101

All-Time Leaderboard

1.     Agata Silverdagger – 9,812

2.     Idiot – 9,811

3.     Aleda Silverdagger – 9,810

4.     Asthea Silverdagger – 9,808

5.     Alfifa Silverdagger – 9,798

[You have completed part two of the trial dungeon! Calculating overall performance and ranking…]

[Calculating…]

[…]

[Tactician Trial results calculated!]

[As a rank 1 leaderboard player, you will receive 25 levels!]

[Congratulations, Idiot!]

Logan’s eyes bulged as the rush of a massive level increase sent euphoria shooting through his veins, but then he pushed the feeling aside. There was another message from the System, but in his urgency to get to Asthea, Logan disregarded it like swiping a text message. She hadn’t won—but that still meant she’d placed second, which would give her 25 free attributes. That had to be enough.

Logan took a second to glance over the newly formed door that glowed on one of the white walls before rushing back to Asthea. It had to be the portal. The portal back to humanity and Ernie.

Shaking Asthea gently and then more roughly when she didn’t respond, Logan tried to get her to open her eyes. She would have received 25 free attribute points, but until she assigned them, that wouldn’t do a thing.

“Asthea! Asthea, wake up!”

Nothing.

Fucking hell.

He needed something that would jolt her out of this, something that would force her to open her eyes. In a normal world, a shot of epinephrine would have done it. The problem was, he didn’t have drugs, he didn’t have any—

Drugs.

Gasping, Logan mentally rummaged through his spatial storage. Fuck yeah! He had drugs! He had purple cough syrup water! He’d scooped up a whole bucket full of the crap before he left the perception trial.

The water was a drug—that was plain—but he wasn’t sure if this was the type of drug she needed. While submerged in the purple stream, it had made him forget his worries, cocooning him in a warm embrace. That didn’t say adrenaline to Logan. Yet it was the only thing he had.

Crouching next to Asthea, Logan tilted up her chin and parted her lips. For all he knew he could end up choking her, so he’d try a small amount. Taking one of the towels out of his collar, he dipped the end into the bucket, soaking it, and then drizzled the purple water into Asthea’s mouth.

Come on, come on.

Nothing.

Fuck.

Did he dare more? What if she choked—

With a gasp, Asthea’s eyes popped open, pupils blown wide. She sat up as if she’d been electrocuted, her blood matted hair standing on end. Giving Logan a dreamy smile as if she were looking right through him, her expression then shifted. It was a gradual change. From dreamy to horror-stricken. Staring down at her missing stub of an arm, she retched, cough syrup spittle flying.

Shit, that didn’t look good.

“Asthea, put your free attributes into your constitution! It’s your only chance.”

She blinked at him uncomprehendingly.

“You’ve leveled up! Allocate your points to survive.”

Asthea’s expression grew far away, that same expression everyone got as they reviewed their stat screen. Then with a sharp inhale, her chest inflated, and she moaned in pain. But her expression steadied, her breathing evened. Color came back to her face, and her eyes became more aware.

“W-what happened?” she rasped, staring at her missing arm as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

Yeah, this was tricky.

Logan rubbed the back of his neck. How the heck did you tell someone that you’d just killed their guards? Hell, the guards were her family! There would be no acceptance, no, there, there, Logan, you did what you had to. There was no explaining it away.

“Just remember that your guards were trying to kill me. I didn’t ask for this.”

Logan got up and moved to the side so that Asthea could see the bodies. Thorin with his chopped off fingers and the moving tree inside his chest which was now five feet in height, its leaves dripping blood, its trunk writhing like a worm; Errol on his side, eyes sightless; and Arsen with a pile of dead flies covering his body.

Yeah, there was no explaining this.

Logan hardened his voice and tried to get it over with, like pulling off a Band-Aid. “They were going to kill me, you know they were. It was either them or me. I make no apologies for it, it had to be done.”

Asthea stared. A bated breath. She blinked rapidly as if trying to process what she was seeing, her mouth falling open. Glancing from Errol to Thorin before focusing on Arsen, she crumpled in on herself and let out an anguish-filled moan. “Arsen,” she whispered.

Then she backed away from Logan, her eyes wild. “Stay back! Stay away!”

“Asthea, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Liar! Your whole existence is a lie! I know it was you, you infected our System, you forced torture on us in the dexterity trial! Stealth player! You took my arm so you could get your precious ring. You wanted to farm us for levels all along!”

Logan raised his hands up above his head and tried to show that he was harmless. He felt helpless. Not just with guilt, but with disappointment that it had gotten this bad. There would be no talking her out of this.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

Her veins stood out from her neck as she bared her teeth. “Stealth player. Idiot. Logan. Whatever you call yourself, know this. I put a curse upon your line. I’ll hunt you down and kill you. Kill those you love so you know the same pain I feel. Wherever you go, I’ll pursue you. To the ends of the Collective. By the time I’m done with you, your guts will be wrapped around your neck, and you’ll curse the day you ever encountered Asthea Silverdagger.”

Logan’s lips thinned.

“Now,” she snapped. “Are you planning to kill me? Finish the job?” Her eyes were as blue as ice. “Come on, pull out your weapon. Have at it! Take my other arm!”

Logan didn’t move.

Asthea spat a glob of spit on the floor in disdain. “I didn’t think so. Get out of my way.”

With a face engraved in stone that turned into a grimace of pain as she passed Logan, she strode towards the portal.

Ah, fuck. “Asthea.”

She paused.

Visions of Lara facing a line of Silverdagger warriors filled his mind; her rifle—a rifle!—swung over her shoulder, her mouth in a grim line as if she’d been through hell and back. Worse yet, his nieces had been missing from that scene. He had to hope they were safe in a bolthole somewhere—Lara wouldn’t have gone to war with them—but a knot of worry ate away at his stomach all the same. Lara’s face had been too lined, as if she’d aged ten years.  

In that vision of the future, Logan had died. That meant that Asthea’s guards had survived, but in that vision, she was still fighting a line of humanity. Had she been that bitter that Logan had taken her arm?

And yet, the future had changed. Logan had killed Asthea’s guards. If she were that committed when Logan had just taken an arm, what would she do now? Arsen had seemed like a father to her. She’d loved him. That was a hell of a loss. Would she motivate her mother to launch a world war? Go on a crusade to eliminate humanity? Logan would have liked to believe that Asthea would never do that, but how could he gamble with that possibility when Lara’s life was on the line?

Not to mention that in Asthea’s eyes, he was the owner of a weapon that was anathema to her people. By killing her guards, he might as well have spelled out ‘corrupted’ in her eyes. There would be no turning her away from that conviction.

Throughout this past week, there had been times when he may have deserved the System’s ‘Idiot’ name, but to let her go, release her to launch a crusade? That would be the height of stupidity. In the fight with Asthea’s guards, he’d survived because he’d resolved to be brutal, to be ruthless. Logan was only standing here because he’d changed his tactics, by not letting them walk all over him and by being smart.

But he’d gotten into trouble in the first place because he’d been too lenient, too much in his own pre-System perception of the world. There was a place for nice guys—there would always be a place for someone who helped the innocent and did what was just—but when you were living in a kill or be killed world, letting someone utter threats against you—against your family—and then letting them go to launch a crusade…

Logan couldn’t do it.

Logan could see it in his mind. He didn’t know if it was partly from [Foresight], or partly from his instincts, but it was clear as day. If Logan let Asthea return to her people, she’d recuperate—and she’d stew. She’d prepare. She’d gather her people and marshal an army of warriors to go after Logan and those he held dear. Lara, the kids, Tasha and Jack. Innocents would be victims in the crossfire, and then a vow of vengeance would make Logan into the very person the Silverdagger Clan had been so concerned with—a man dominated by violence, by hatred.

All because Logan couldn’t make a hard decision.

And do what was right.

Asthea was a woman, Asthea reminded him of Lara, but if he let her go for that reason only, he would be a hypocrite. There was a reason a matriarch led Asthea’s clan. Hadn’t she told him herself that if it had been Asthea in Logan’s place in the attribute trials, she would have deployed vicious tactics to protect her loved ones and come out on top?

Not to mention what Asthea’s mother would do when she learned that Logan had interfered in her daughter’s Trial of Awakening and killed her guards. As soon as Asthea returned, suddenly Earth wouldn’t be a newly integrated world struggling to survive, it would be the world that hosted the killer of her daughter’s guards.

It would be beyond folly to let her go.

But he couldn’t cut her down while her back was to him.

Logan picked up one of Arsen’s discarded daggers.

Waiting until she was facing him, he threw it towards her. He wasn’t expecting her to catch it—not with one arm—but she did with reflexes that surprised him.

“If you want to fight, do it with me. Do it now.”

Chapter 95: The Purge Tutorial

Asthea’s lip curled. “So you show your true colors after all. Where is the Scourge of Arcopotal’s weapon? The picture isn’t yet complete.”

“I’m doing this with my own hands.”

Her hand tightened on the dagger. “So be it, trickster! This is for Arsen! This is for my guards!” Rushing towards him with her teeth bared, her veins standing out on her neck, Asthea held the dagger up with her good hand, sharp edges glinting. Her long hair draped down to her back, clumped together with dried blood, and her blue warpaint running down her face gave her a truly ferocious look.

With a blink, Logan reformed his talons, extending them until they were lethal weapons ten inches in length. They shone with diamond edges, sparkling off the walls of the room. Using his agility and the Pink Sock, he launched himself into the air, slamming into the wall behind her and jumping off the other way, twisting his body in mid-jump, his talons ready to strike.

Asthea had just enough time to pivot around and face him.

She let out a grunt of effort, her blue eyes on fire, her wolf ears pointing straight up as she stabbed with the dagger. Logan felt a pressure, a prickling against his arm, but a pressure only. The dagger wasn’t strong enough to get through his armour.

Unlike her guards, Asthea was forty levels below Logan; missing her True Grit Ring, and missing an arm.

She didn’t have a chance.

Logan slashed her throat with his talons, blood spraying in a torrent.

He came to a landing in a crouch, panting, his talons held up in front of him.

But the picture that met him was undeniable.

Asthea slumped to the floor like a sack of flour, the dagger dropping from her hand and clanging against the stone tile. With a last gurgle, she had just enough strength left to look Logan in the eyes, her eyes full of betrayal and rage.

Ding!

[You have defeated a Level 51 Silverthorn female!]

“Fuck!” Logan kicked the wall so forcefully that the tip of his sandstone boot shattered.

Even though it had been necessary, he felt a pang of heartache, and an unsettled feeling rolled in his gut. He couldn’t help swallowing, his throat closing, his eyes stinging as he turned away from the sight of Asthea’s body.

Running a hand through his hair, Logan pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d never wanted it to come to this. If things had been different, Logan thought they could have been good friends.

It was the System who had forced him to this. By giving him a cursed weapon with a bad history. It was no coincidence that the Cursed Rope had ended up in his Tree Fridge. Regardless of whether it was the glitchy AI minion who did it or the real System, the culpability was the same.

Sighing, he eyed the bodies of the guards. There was no way he was leaving them. Who knew how many rings, spatial storage devices, and weapons they had on them. That would come in handy when he found Lara and the kids. Not to mention that Tasha and Jack could use good weapons.

He didn’t know how the trial dungeon worked after the trial was over, but if he left them, who’s to say that the next group wouldn’t stumble over the corpses? That was a quick way to start the very war he’d been trying to avoid by taking out Asthea.

Concentrating on each corpse, he willed them into his spatial storage one after another, throwing in Thorin’s discarded sword, and all the other weapons. He needed to do an inventory, but only after he’d gotten out of here and on more normal, Earth-like ground.

As he thought about returning home, Logan couldn’t hold back a smile tinged with heartache. He was returning to Ernie, back to humanity. It wouldn’t be easy; he knew it would never be easy with the System, but to make progress and escape out of this torture trial was enough to lighten his spirits.

Plus, he wasn’t forgetting his bonuses.

With a moue of concentration, Logan pulled up the System message he’d disregarded.

[In addition, for placing on the All-Time Leaderboard, you will receive a personalized, crafted item from the System. Based on your needs, this reward has been determined to be the most valuable boon possible.]

[A continuous portal generation crystal. A Grade.]

Logan raised his eyebrows. These messages were almost… boring. He couldn’t believe he was thinking this, but if they continued this way—respectful, staid—he might miss the snarky System messages. But there was no denying that the reward was intriguing.

Logan opened his hand. Inside of it was a marble like Asthea’s communication crystal. It was blue and shone with a faint light as if a firefly were trapped inside. If this did what he thought it did… well, let’s just say that it would be a heck of a lot easier to find Lara. For now, Logan threw it into his spatial storage and then removed the item he was the most excited about.

The Perception True Grit Ring.

With the last piece in the set, instead of doubling his physical stats, he’d triple them. The rings would absorb into his body, becoming permanent. Theft proof.

With a grin of satisfaction, he put on the ring and then—

What the hell; what the hell. What was happening to his fingers?! Logan had dealt with a chopped off finger and a severed hand before, but this was as if someone had inserted a metal band onto every finger on his right hand and then tightened them like cranking a wrench. Blood pooled around each ring, dripping down his arm. Then the metal started to melt, melting and burning. [Regenerate] was doing something odd—it was fighting back—healing the injury just as fast as it tried to bury deeper.

Logan hadn’t had a chance to look at his stat sheet in a while, but he had to be higher leveled, which meant he would have leveled up the skill. Whatever was happening had to be making it worse. Finally, the rings overcame his skill and fully dissolved, disappearing into his flesh, each finger healing as if there hadn’t been a problem in the first place.

Logan had a second to take that in before he held on for a hell of a ride.

He felt the molecules of his body reforming. His muscles were being fine-tuned, becoming more corded, that hidden layer of steel underneath turning into a diamond. Screaming, he felt his eyes bulging, the veins underneath his skin pulsing, agony rushing through him as he was reformed anew. Holy fuck, he could swear he’d just jumped up a half an inch!

His perception exploded like a god had just dropped from the sky and clapped his massive hands together to create a percussion thundercloud. Logan’s senses jumped from item to item as if he’d turned on [Life Cycle Master] but rammed it up to a hundred.

Next, his agility ramped up until he couldn’t control himself, jumping from foot to foot and only just restraining himself from activating his pink sock and hurtling towards the ceiling.

That would go hand-in-hand with an endurance boost that made him feel as if he’d been swept up by a hurricane. His heart raced and he felt like zooming around the room like a rat in a race. He felt so energized and jacked up that it was all he could do to stop himself from running through the portal and keep running until he reached Lara.

Lastly, his dexterity made him crack his knuckles, wanting to take everything from his spatial storage and start a juggling bonanza.

Holy fuck.

That had been a rush.

With anticipation dancing in his belly, Logan pulled up his full stat sheet.

Name: Logan Hart [Hidden Name: Idiot]

Rank: 3 out of 6,008,128,837

Level: 95

Class: None

Grade: F9

Species: Human

Skills:

·       Idiot’s Paradox Lv. 28

·       Idiot’s Inspect Lv. 10

·       Deepwater Explorer Lv. 3

·       Life Cycle Master

·       Regenerate Lv. 10

·       Mimicry Armour Lv. 2

·       Universal Language

·       Undead Stamina

·       Liche Siphon Lv. 5

·       Foresight

Titles: Eager Beaver; Mass Murderer; Audacious Corpse; Run Until You Drop; Malicious Meat Sack

XP Progress: 120,000/190,000

Karma: 810/810

Intelligence: 135

Constitution: 46

Strength: 116x3* = 348

Agility: 121x3* = 363

Dexterity: 96x3* = 288

Endurance: 147x3* = 441+50% = 662

Perception: 35x3* = 105

Wisdom: 215

Luck: 85

(*Pure Grit Ring)

Free Attribute Points: 255

KarmaCoin: 302,600

He could only gape, not knowing if what he was seeing was real.

It had to be impossible.

Rank three. Rank three out of six billion people! Fucking hell. But when he saw his stats, he could believe it. He’d skyrocketed to level 95; he was ranked F9, just one level away from E Grade. Due to that upgrade, his Grade dependant skills had leveled up. [Regenerate] was now level ten. Holy hell, no wonder it had been so difficult for the rings to sink into his body!

Not only that, but due to his level increases, he still had 255 free attributes to assign. 255!

After the tripling effect of the skill rings, there was only two options that made sense. Once he got back to the real world, he’d need a heck of a lot of Karma to tackle the Save Humanity Quest. If he threw all 255 points into his intelligence stat, he would increase his Karma pool from 810 to 2,240.

Fuck.

That was a huge Karma pool. But at the same time, he might not always be around enemies, which meant that [Liche Siphon] would be ineffectual in certain circumstances. He needed to get his Karma generation rate up.

However, the one thing he did know was that the portal had cost 1,500 Karma. If that ended up being a requirement to exit, then Logan wasn’t taking any chances. Calculating the math in his head, he allocated his points.

[Intelligence: 136]

[Intelligence: 137+]

[Intelligence: 260]

[Wisdom: 86]

[Wisdom: 87+]

[Wisdom: 215]

He allocated 125 points into intelligence to give himself a 1,560 Karma pool and then put the rest, 130 points, into his wisdom attribute to increase his Karma regeneration rate to 215 per minute.

As soon as he made the change, he was hit with the mother of all upgrades. Gasping, he tilted his face up to the ceiling, and then reeled after scene after scene rushed through his mind, from carrying Eleanor’s body to the willow tree, to fighting the undead minions at the resort, their flower tentacle tongues wiggling, to his fight with the murderers at the cabin. He suspected that the System was showing him the most impactful events of the last week, the things that had stayed with him, shaping him for what was to come.

To first meeting Ernie, to forming a bond and brotherhood with him, to escaping the queen serpent and going through the portal. His grit and determination as he used everything at his disposal to make his way through the trials.

And lastly, his fight with the guards.

Taking one final gasp, Logan looked towards the portal.

But before he could think about leaving and returning to Earth, the System interrupted him.

Ding!

[Good news, human! The daily pollution eliminator purge events are completed. Humanity has now reached the required threshold for Class eligibility. Congratulations!]

[Class rarities will be generated based on how well you advanced and grew during the purge tutorial.]

[Calculating options…]

[….]

<----Go to chapter 96.