The fact that serious attacks wouldn’t start in the scenario until Day 16 could certainly be considered a trap for the complacent. For my part though, I was grateful for the precious few days to process what I’d seen that night.
I didn’t actually understand it any better, but it was enough to get my focus back on the task at hand by Day 15. Up until now, I had always upgraded my gold mines as much as possible, but if I did that now, I wouldn’t be able to get the title upgrade tomorrow.
However, it occurred to me that perhaps it didn’t matter as much to have my troops able to resist those of Team FOXHOUND. Actively trying to kill all the final bosses of the scenario went off the script of the plan Arvallei and I had developed. If I succeeded, I’d claim so many Crowns that Team Firebrand’s point total would be mathematically unsurpassable.
Oh well. I could at least generate advanced Troopers in case the others were attacked, either by Team FOXHOUND’s troops or those from another team out of opportunism.
That night, I met with Darril again. I outlined the original plan I’d made with Arvallei to deal with FOXHOUND to him. It made for a very convenient lie now that my plan had changed. I couldn’t risk anyone knowing what I was really about to do. With luck, no members of Team FOXHOUND would attack the rest of the team.
If they did...well possibly, I could use it to my advantage—come to the rescue and eliminate the boss. Possibly the teammate in question would survive as long as I was quick.
But it was equally, if not more possible, that I’d end up sacrificing some or all of them in order to clear this mission. Maybe they were just NPCs, but I never liked kicking NPCs to the curb like that even in video games. It just wasn’t the kind of person I wanted to be.
Whatever—I'd do what I could to keep them from dying without sacrificing the mission. I had to be content with that, and for the most part I was. What really preyed on my mind was how much the Tower seemed to encourage such callousness. Forget petty theft, in this Throskart storyline, I had committed so many depravities.
On the 1st Floor, I had engaged in wholesale slaughter.
On the 2nd Floor, I had turned blind eyes and deaf ears to people suffering and dying of thirst right in front of me.
On the 3rd Floor, I had commanded my teammates through fear and dictated their every move in the game.
And now, I was putting them in danger for my own selfish reasons.
And what really bothered me was that I could claim, extremely reasonably, that I had no choice. The 1st Floor was kill or be killed, you’d have to be further up your ass than the average American politician to deny it. Showing kindness on the 2nd would have only harmed my chances of survival without meaningfully helping theirs. What way save for fear could I have possibly gotten cooperation out of people whose racism toward me made Adolf Hitler look like a mellow person?
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And against such a foe as the team of child super-soldiers I was up against, if I prioritized protecting my teammates over killing them, I’d be too much more likely to be killed myself.
With every single hurdle the Tower had presented, I could either fail my moral principles or fail the mission. And every time I compromised them, every time I put its missions above everything and everyone else around me, the Tower rewarded me, it praised me. It gave me useful things, sometimes things I badly needed, riches, and greater power.
It wasn’t going to stop. Once we entered the 5th Floor, the team missions, it would get even worse. Some Floors would pit challenger teams against each other, Bruzigan had said. Sometimes we’d be on opposite sides of a conflict, sometimes we’d be competing in a deadly contest, and sometimes it would be in more unusual ways. But it wouldn’t just be NPCs anymore, or enemies who obviously needed to die like Dieter. Sooner or later, I would have to kill innocent competitors—or at least, competitors who were no guiltier than I was.
And I had no doubt that when I did, the Tower would continue to implicitly praise my action. To bit by bit, nudge me into becoming someone not only willing to kill, but someone for whom killing anyone in my way would be a matter of course.
A monster.
Mewi and I needed to surpass Area 1, that much was clear. But what then? Would we be able to more or less stop? Or would events continue to spur us onward? And for how far?
Who would we be, when that happened? How low would we sink, to climb how high?
On the bright side, these things weighing on my mind would make it very, very easy to tap into my anger in the battles to come.
Day 16 arrived. The upper half of the Noble Title store revealed itself. It went from “Red Robe” for 250,000 to “Blue Robe” for a whopping 100,000,000—an almost unattainable total even for those favored to win from the start. With assistance from Betty, the trio also managed the upgrade. All four of us would be able to upgrade our Soldiers to Troopers, and I’d be able to upgrade my Archers to Gunners, the next day as well as recruit more. For now, only Barnett and Caleb could.
They’d never match Team FOXHOUND’s production, but with any luck they’d be able to at least hold out against just their troops. There was one more thing I needed, but I was a couple thousand short. Fortunately, Betty was still able to help there as well.
Namely, it was time to get one of the “ultimates” on the first half of the Tech Tree, Diplomacy. It enabled you to send messages to other teams.
Enabling Diplomacy wasn’t part of the original plan. That plan called only for surviving against Team FOXHOUND, and if plausible, killing one or two of them to take a large number of crowns and secure 2nd place. I’d brought up the idea of actually going after them, because, although he admitted my overall power level would give me a chance against them, there was hardly any detailed information about their roles and abilities. It was too much risk for not enough gain.
Of course, that was before the hidden mission triggered. Now it was insanely worth the risk. Now, I needed them to come after me, rather than only trying to stop my team.
[To: Team FOXHOUND (all members)]
[From: Lheticus (Team Firebrand)]
I know you’re coming after me. I know your masters have ordered my death, or at minimum my failure in the finals.
Okay, I don’t actually KNOW, but I’d be astonished if it wasn’t the case. But my teammates only agreed to ally with me to survive. They only did what they had to. They should not be included in this.
I will give you all a chance to take me on—just me. Starting tomorrow, I will territory-hop in the direction of your team’s nation. I will station no troops. I will be completely alone.
I demand the ten of you also come alone. If you use troops to attack me, you will regret it. I will not extend this opportunity a second time.]